Gloria Shi

    This was my first Halloween in the United States. I am 14 years old, which might be too old in the eyes of some people to go trick-or-treating. But it was not just trick-or-treating for candy. This year my friend and I would be participating in a program called “We Scare Hunger.” We would collect non-perishable food items for our local food banks to help the less fortunate or homeless people.

    This time I dressed up as a gorilla, because my friends and I had this inside joke about my name Gloria sounding similar to gorilla. So, because of this, I’d always wanted to be a gorilla for Halloween.

    My friend Anna, who dressed up as an angel for Halloween, and I started trick-or-treating in my neighborhood at around six. We went to my neighbor’s house, which was fantastically decorated with dark figures behind trees and in the bushes and spooky music playing at their front door with lights that kept on flashing as we approached. We were scared because we were afraid that someone might jump out at us. It was Halloween after all! We finally mustered up the courage to walk up and ring the doorbell. The grandparents were home, and they told us they weren’t sure about what to give out, so they gave us handfuls of candy and wished us luck.

    After that, we went up the street and continued trick-or-treating for cans. After about 10 to 15 houses, our bags got really heavy. Then, while we were walking up the steps to another house, my backpack suddenly gave out and the straps snapped! So we had to go back and stop by my house. We didn’t know how much we had collected until we emptied our bags. I was stunned. I never thought so many people would give so much. I only expected it to be one bagful, but this looked like two to three full bags!

    Later on that night, we went up the hill to Anna’s neighborhood. First, we walked to a couple of houses by the road where there weren’t many trick-or-treaters, so we thought we’d have a better chance of getting food from them. We were the first trick-or-treaters at many of the houses and they were extremely nice, so they gave us full-sized chocolate bars and several cans of food. It was really hard to walk up the hill carrying such heavy bags of cans, and since we had already walked for almost two hours, it all added up.

    By the time we got to Anna’s house, our feet were sore, our arms were hurting and we were so cold. But all in all we had a wonderful night and felt a sense of accomplishment! We collected six full bags of nonperishable food for the food bank, which was way beyond our expectations.

    What I learned from this experience is that people are really kindhearted and they try their best to help those that are less fortunate than they are. Even if they don’t have much, they will try to find a little something to give. Throughout the night, people told us that they appreciated what we were doing and that they support us. If everyone in the world shared and gave and helped the people around them, just imagine how much better the world would be.