Spooktacular- Free Write 8

With one event under my belt we quickly headed into the next one the following week! This time my day started at 8 am, but ended at 11 pm... However it helps that I simply love Halloween. The morning went by smoothly even though we were worried that it would rain again as it had the previous night, but the sky held. It was a *beautiful* morning with cloud cover and just enough sunlight to keep us warm. The previous night we had gotten all of the supplies out of storage and organized it. That night I also helped the Mayor's Youth Commission set up their haunted house in one of the Community Center rooms. The morning of I was in charge of setting up and decorating the "Spooktacular Graveyard"pictured below,

It doesn't seem like much, but it took over 3 hours to assemble. From putting up the gates, to strategically placing the tombstones and other spooky items around, to putting cob webs around the entire thing it was quite an undertaking! The pumpkins were delivered from a local farm in Chandler and that took enough 30 minutes walking all 250 of them from the truck to the cemetery. It was worth it in the end from the multiple compliments I received from both personal and guests alike! It was a huge hit and all the pumpkins found homes with families who had the option to paint them at the event.

Spooktacular was a little different from Day of Play because we had no outside contractors (like we did with the table/chair/booth set up at DOP) and did all the work ourselves. I have to say my heart broke a little when we disassembled the graveyard. At this event though I learned how to manage staff and volunteers and was given more responsibility in that area. We had the Chandler High ROTC join us and help run the various carnival games, one of which I was in charge of. Having never managed people before I felt a little awkward asking them to do specific tasks, but I always made sure to thank them for their service and would help them with tasks when I could. In the end it made me a better, more confident leader. One of my certificates is in Leadership and I was finally able to apply some of the concepts I had learned to the real world!

Normally the event draws about 1800 to 2000 people, but my boss said this year they probably had the highest turn out with about 3500 people attending. It certainly felt that way! It was great seeing so many people come out, though, and appreciate all our hard work. It was also great seeing all the little kids dressed up and having a blast with all the activities. Serving the public in this way is so rewarding and I am loving every minute of it.