By Kevin Hornibrook
Correspondent
A unicorn, a devil and a sandwich walk into a lounge.
Cromwell Lounge was filled candy and costumes for a festive Halloween “Trunk or Treat” on Oct. 30, as students at the College slipped into the holiday spirit.
The Residence Hall Association organized the event and invited the students to bring a bag and trick-or-treat for all the sugary snacks they could handle. Anyone who attended dressed in a costume was given a free mini-pumpkin.
A traditional “trunk or treat” entails many cars filling up a parking lot and handing out candy from their trunks to eager children. Fitting multiple cars into the Cromwell Lounge would have been no easy task, so adaptation was needed.
Other student organizations took the role of trunks, with each occupying a table and distributing treats. Groups like the Deaf Hearing Connection, Delta Sigma Pi, the Black Student Union and many others littered their tables with a variety of sweets. WTSR, which was stationed on the side of the lounge, provided the venue with lively music.
“A lot goes into planning something like this,” said Martina Malak, a sophomore international studies and business management double major and RHA Vice President and Programming Chair. “What do we want to provide the students with?”
Malak and the RHA spent weeks communicating with several student groups and crafting themed decorations. All of the streamers, paper skeletons, and banners scattered across the room were handmade.
“My favorite part is seeing it all play out,” Malak said. “Seeing the teamwork from our organization and how they can work together, I’m like a little mom basically. I love seeing it happen. I love seeing the outcome of it.”
The RHA’s goal with Trunk or Treat was to provide a free, fun activity for College residents to enjoy the holiday without having to leave the campus.
Dozens of students arrived donning an unpredictable variety of costumes, such as Zeus, a cow and several pop culture icons.
“My favorite was the person dressed as a taco,” said Dom Lamastra, a freshman computer science major, who was disguised as Mike Wheeler from Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”
Avina Sharma, a freshman English and secondary education dual major who was dressed as Eleven, also had a favorite costume.
“Someone was in a Scoop’s Ahoy uniform,” she said. “That was my favorite.”
But students didn’t attend simply to show off their costumes. In fact, many did not come in a costume at all. The appeal of games, candy and potential networking was more than enough to draw people from their dorms.
“I came to learn more about the clubs and organizations,” Lamastra said. “And also free food.”
For the duration of the two-hour event, students stuffed their bags and spoke with representatives from the co-sponsoring organizations, thrilled to be spending the Halloween season collecting candy as if they were children.
“Who really gets to trick or treat nowadays?” Malak said. “This is a fun way to let kids our age trick or treat again.”
