Trunk or Treat was hosted on October 30 from 6-8 p.m. in the school gym. During the event, more than 30 clubs, athletic teams and outside organizations came together to distribute candy, paint faces and play games.
The event was established more than 10 years ago under student council sponsor Meghan Hill.
“When I was just a participant, I liked it because we got to get together, dress up, and pass out candy to little kids,” Hill said. “But now as someone facilitating the event, I see it more as an opportunity to really bond with our community. We see a lot of kids from our feeder schools coming through and they get to see Rouse and the kind of events that we do and be involved.”
The event also serves as a food drive for the LISD backpack program, an organization dedicated to supplying meals to students and families facing food insecurity.
“I think it’s a great program, we’ve supported it for many years,” Hill said. “Despite appearances there’s a lot of people in our district that need help. You can’t go wrong with helping people.”
Preparation for the event begins a month in advance, with the Student Council in charge of designing flyers, updating the backpack program food list and selecting decorations.
“We make it a sophomore-led project, because it’s already well established,” Hill said. “It gives them their first opportunity to have some creativity and meet deadlines. But it’s very, very structured from me because it’s been here for more than 10 years.”
In the future, the student council hopes to encourage greater community involvement.
“We would like to have families of kids that go to [Rouse] who own their own businesses, so we’re promoting small business and promoting community even outside of our community,” Hill said.
Despite the cold weather causing a last minute change of location, this year’s event still had one of the largest turnouts.
“This is my favorite event we do every year because of the community building part of it,” Hill said. “We get to see staff members bring their kids and I had former students who bring their kids now.”