By Jess Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 6, 2013
On a day usually spent picking out the best costume and indulging in candy, the Student Union Society (SUS) decided to go in a different direction.
Having recently opened their on-campus food bank, the SUS advocacy committee held the first annual Trick-or-Eat event on October 31.
Costume-clad students visited different departments at UFV collecting non-perishable food items and monetary donations. In the end they raised $226.10 and 411.5 pounds of food.
“We had the trolley and it was overflowing by the end,” said VP academic Kristianne Hendricks. “We actually had more food than we could handle in here, so we [brought] some of it back over to the [Abbotsford] food bank … we’re sharing back and forth.”
SUS’s food drive was modelled after the annual Trick-or-Treat event run by Student Life, which regularly goes from department to department collecting Unicef donations on Halloween.
“When we knew we were doing the food bank we actually went and talked to [Student Life programmer Martin Kelly] and we asked him if we could change the donor, so instead of trick or treating for Unicef we would trick or treat for the food bank,” explained Hendricks.
Both events were scheduled to occur on Halloween, with SUS’ early in the day and Student Life’s at the end. However, as the date approached, Student Life decided to cancel their event.
“Student Life deferred their event to SUS. SUS was doing trick or eat, we pulled our trick or treat so there wouldn’t be any confusion,” Kelly explained.
He went on to say that while both events help charity, Student Life’s goals are about getting students involved.
“What we’re supposed to do is engagement,” he said. “The charity is secondary consideration to having lots of students that are usually around the edges that wouldn’t come and do anything to come in and participate.”
In the end, SUS was able to raise food and money for their charity initiatives and Student Life held various Halloween events at U-House.
