Bright orange pumpkins, grayish white ghosts, paper candy corn and brown paper leaves will adorn seven rooms at Norris University Center today.
About 700 children from Evanston and surrounding cities will be bused to Norris for the annual Project Pumpkin, Northwestern Community Development Corps’ largest volunteer event of the year. Northwestern faculty and staff are encouraged to bring their children, as well.
Evanston restricts Halloween trick-or-treating hours for safety reasons.
NCDC purchased $1,200 worth of Snickers bars, Nerds candy, Tootsie Rolls, lollipops and other candy for the children, said Kelly Dougherty, co-chairwoman of NCDC’s special events.
The group expects about 200 student volunteers to serve as chaperones at the pre-holiday event, said Kelly Dougherty, a Weinberg senior.
“(Project Pumpkin) sells itself,” said Alondra Canizal, co-chairwoman of special events and a Medill junior. “People show up to help the day of the event.”
Sixty student groups will be participating in the event, each having a booth in one of the Norris rooms. Group members will have activities for the children to enjoy, such as face painting, cookie decorating and musical chairs.
Project Pumpkin organizers said they expect Chemistry lecturer Eberhard Zwergel to make slime and OASIS, a student community service group, to host a haunted house in the Louis Room. Purple Haze, Thunk and Boomshaka will be performing outside the Louis Room.
Student groups with booths also are required to have candy donations available for children as a part of their service, according to Suzan Akin, coordinator of Student Community Service.
Each of the seven rooms that will be used at Norris will have a Halloween-related theme, including the graveyard room, the fall room and the candy room.
Rachel Leess, the decorations chairwoman for Project Pumpkin, said she helped decorate Norris last year on the day of the event and enjoyed it so much that she chose to apply for the decorations position when she saw the NCDC tent at the Activities Fair in September.
“I’ve always loved decorating for Halloween and this is a great program,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “Decorations play a big role in how much the kids enjoy the event.”
Fifteen students have helped with decorations over the past two days, cutting out paper decorations in the ARTica Studios in Norris.
Students who volunteered their time Sunday afternoon to make decorations reminisced about their childhood memories of Halloween.
Weinberg sophomore Elise Krause said she choose to help make decorations for the event because she missed doing arts and crafts projects in college.
“In high school I did set design,” Krause said, as she cut out a tarantula from black paper. She added she also liked the idea of connecting with the Evanston community and moving beyond the “Northwestern bubble.”
Last year between 800 and 900 children interacted with about 200 NU students who chaperoned the event.
Project Pumpkin organizers said they felt the event went smoothly last year, so no large changes were made, Dougherty said. She added that organizers were following the model established last year.
Reach Marcy Miranda at [email protected].
