Isabella Abbott | Features Editor
Nov. 3, 2022
Students decked out in costume were able to relive their trick-or-treating childhoods at Assumption Hall on Monday night, as resident assistants held Trick-or-Treat Around the World.
Devils, angels and witches alike began their haunted evening by getting brown paper lunch bags from the lobby around 8:30 p.m. and going from floor to floor, grabbing all different types of chocolates and gummies. Although the event started with bags upon bags of assorted candy, residents took action, filling their bags to the top, leaving only a few spare pieces behind.
Since many college-aged students don’t go around to houses dressed up and grabbing bowls of candy anymore, this event was the perfect way to bring them back to their old Halloween celebrations and habits. Danielle Polizzi, one of the resident assistants who helped make the event possible, said the decision was made because her residents wanted to be able to trick-or-treat again.
“My residents came up to me and were like, ‘Danielle, do you do trick-or-treating here?,’ and I was like, ‘No, but that could happen,’ so we merged and did it,” Polizzi said, smiling. “They have to come ‘cause it’s their idea.”
Aniston Glemba, another resident assistant in charge of the event, said the night was organized not to give free candy away, but to “let residents know of other cultures and their candies.”
Since people tend to only focus on how good the candy tastes and which ones they gravitate toward more—never on where it may have originated from—this around-the-world candy event was a great way to show them just that.
Five gray cloth cubes represented the Halloween candy buckets for the night, all filled with candies from Argentina, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United States. Each of these also had a paper taped on the side with a short description of how the country labeled celebrates the holiday, as well as what the candy is called in its native country.
Residents had to make sure they made their rounds to each floor to get a taste of each country’s candies.
While students grabbed their favorites from the four floors of Assumption Hall, they could read about how Argentina’s version of Halloween includes a 5k run in Buenos Aires (the country’s capital city), or that Spain has a three-day Halloween event that corresponds to All Saint’s Day—a major, Catholic holiday. When they made their way back to the lobby area, students could read all about the history of Halloween from the first bucket, which contained America’s classic candies like Kit-Kats, Whoppers and Snickers.
Argentina’s bucket had Arcor candies (hard candies with a fruity center), while Spain had Chupa Chups lollipops (bubble gum-filled lollipops).
Italy’s main candy was ZotZ, a hard candy that contains sherbet and has a sour center. Polizzi’s favorite candy was the ZotZ, as she described the red flavor as being “where it’s at.”
From the Japan bucket, students saw candies like Hi-Chews, a soft, chewy candy with varying flavors like mango, green apple and pineapple. Dori Shearer, another resident assistant running the event, said that the mango Hi-Chews were her favorite.
To prove Hi-Chew’s popularity, once the Japan cube was placed in a floor’s study room just as the event started, girls dressed as witches were all over the bucket. Their hats got in the way of one another, digging around to try and find their favorite flavors.
Throughout the event, students were encouraged to grab as much candy as they wanted, a huge difference from their younger years where they’d have to abide by signs that might’ve said, “Take one piece only.”
The organizers wanted the candy gone by the end of the night.