Halloween. My absolute favorite holiday. It starts with all the décor (ours did in fact go up September 6th this year – per request of my kids of course), builds throughout October with pumpkin patches, events all month long for children, school dress up days, parties for kids and adults and ending with ecstatic children and high energy as we tour our local neighborhoods interacting with our neighbors. It’s perfection. It saddens me to think that there are many children that don’t get the experience Halloween the way I did many years ago. Even more so, how I get to enjoy it now watching my own children revel in the excitement and activities of October. No safe neighborhoods to trick-or-treat in, no candy collections, no pumpkins to carve and most importantly, no costumes to wear and engage in a night of make believe. Knowing how much my kids look forward to picking our their costumes each year, this is tragic to me. So for the beginning of October ISP wants to do something about it. This month we will be collecting old Halloween costumes, new costumes, trick-or-treat pails, even old dance costumes (if you know me, you know I have a few of those).  Please help us collect gently used costumes for kids in Orange County or your area starting next week.     How to do this month’s campaign:

1. Look through closet and old boxes
2. Grab those old costumes
3. contact Kim at ISP
4. OR look up local foster homes, shelters, or churches in your area who work with homeless or fostered children

Supplies:

1. Costumes – of course
2. A phone or computer to call or email ISP and say, “Hi, I want to drop off some costumes!”
3. A child willing to “let go”. Good luck parents…….

Reflection Questions:

1. What is your favorite holiday?
2. What do you like about Halloween?
3. How would you feel if you didn’t have a costume to celebrate Halloween?
4. What do you think it is like to live somewhere where you could not trick-or-treat?
5. What costumes have you worn? Why was this costume amazing?
6. What do you think a child who doesn’t have one think of your costume?
7. How would that make YOU feel knowing that you had the power to make another kid feel super special?

If you are local to OC, please contact ISP and schedule a time to drop off. Please have all costumes dropped off no later than October 15th, 2016.