Oak Lane Trick or Treating to give back
Pahenllic hosted their annual Oak Lane Trick or Treating for children on Friday to give back to the Blacksburg community.
“I'm so excited to see the kids in their costumes this year. They’re all so cute and this should be so much fun” said Anna Cannon, member of Chi Omega and Trick or Treating volunteer.
This event is put on so that the greek community and Panhellenic, which oversees all greek activity at Virginia Tech, to give back to the Blacksburg area. It is part of a two-day giving back project that includes trick or treating and on the following day, Greeks Giving Back. Greeks Giving Back allows participating greek organizations to do home projects for specific homeowners in the New River Valley area.
Each sorority and fraternity with houses on Oak Lane were encouraged to participate by either handing out candy to children or by walking them around the neighborhood according to Karen Buynak, a Panhellic delegate.
Organizations that participated was allowed to decorate their respective houses with Halloween decorations. This caused houses to put up cobwebs, skeletons, pumpkins and more to “set the mood” said Buynak.
One fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, in the Oak Lane community was transformed into a haunted house that participants had the chance to go into. The house was decorated with different rooms ranging from an abandoned hospital to a science laboratory. Volunteers inside the haunted house were dressed up and placed in the various rooms to jump out and scare the children .
If participants did not want to go into the haunted house, there was a bouncy house in the center of the community. The bouncy house had one main cabin where children could jump and play while a second section included a slide they could ride down.
Participating organizations had games outside their houses that children could play in order to win extra candy or prizes. Games outside the houses ranged from pumpkin cornhole to zombie tic-tac-toe. Children had the option of playing against other children, their parents or the volunteers at each of the houses. After the game was finished, the child could choose a piece of candy to add to their bags prizes.
Parents had the option of walking around Oak Lane with their children or letting volunteers walk them instead. Volunteers were grouped into pairs so that every family had two volunteers to show them around the Oak Lane community. This was also done to help with foot traffic so each house had an equal number of children at one time.
The participating volunteers dressed up as witches, doctors and more to walk around with the children or pass out candy at the houses.
“We wanted to dress up with the kids so they really felt like its Halloween,” said Brittany Glidden, Alpha Delta Pi member and event volunteer. “In all honesty it makes it so much more fun and the kids love seeing people dressed in the same costumes as them.”
After walking around the community, children were encouraged to take pictures with their volunteers and share them on social media. Panahellenic created a Snapchat geofilter that participants could use to take pictures with. They also uploaded pictures that were taken to their Facebook and Instagram stories to feature some of the children and their costumes.
“The trick or treating is one of our favorite events because everyone loves it, and we always have an amazing turnout from our sororities and fraternities as well as the parents and children in the area,” said Buynak.
At the check in table for volunteers, there was a booth sponsored by Coke that passed out free water to anyone. One member of the sorority Chi Omega, Natalie Wright, is a Coca Cola sponsor and was able to have Coke’s brand of water, Dasni, passed out to the volunteers and the participants of the event.
Greek organizations with houses on Oak Lane that also participated in the event included; Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Pi Beta Phi and more.