Halloween fairs abound
Published 10:58 pm Friday, October 24, 2008
SNOHOMISH — Crisp leaves in pumpkin and cranberry hues crunch underfoot.
Air, tinged with frost, bites at your cheeks.
And, as Steve Martin said in the movie “Cheaper by the Dozen,” kids “get all hopped up on candy.”
It’s that time of year again.
All around Snohomish County, churches are making plans to roll out the bounce houses, carnival games and candy — bags, buckets and truckloads of it — readying for Halloween carnivals and festivals.
There’s a Trunk or Treat event planned at New Life Foursquare Church in Everett. Zion Lutheran Church plans to offer an open house and maze. Bethany Christian Assembly is planning its annual Pumpkin Patch Party. These are just some of the church-sponsored events planned for Friday.
In Snohomish, the fourth annual Snohomish Children’s Carnival is being organized by 11 Snohomish churches and two local businesses.
It’s planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday in the gymnasium at Snohomish Freshman Campus, 601 Glen Ave.
The carnival is expected to attract at least 1,500 kids, more than last year, in part due to the economy, said Rod Ashley, senior pastor of Snohomish Faith Assembly, the lead church for the event.
Costumes are optional. Admission is free, but organizers ask carnivalgoers to bring a canned food item for the Snohomish Food Bank.
No one will be turned away if they don’t bring a canned food item, Ashley stressed, but he hopes people will bring food to help the food bank, which always needs help and extra resources.
At the carnival, kids in sixth grade and below will have two hours to play — on bounce houses, on an obstacle course, at carnival style-games and, as organizers state in their flyer, they’ll be able to grab “an insane amount of candy.”
More than 330 gallons of candy.
That’s because each of the 11 churches helping to put on the event has been collecting candy for weeks, enough to fill at least one 33-gallon garbage can, said Dean Ekloff, lead pastor at Midnight Cry, one of the participating churches.
About 30 volunteers from the biker church in Snohomish also have signed on to help at the event, Ekloff said.
Each participating church brings candy, several carnival-style games and volunteers to the event. Midnight Cry plans to bring a couple bean bag-type games, Ekloff said.
Like volunteers from other churches, some of the Midnight Cry volunteers will take turns working shifts at the carnival games. Others plan to be candy runners, making sure events don’t run out of candy.
Midnight Cry also plans to help with security, Ekloff said.
“Midnight Cry had its own carnival-type event for years,” Ekloff said. When the event started to draw 300 to 400 people, it outgrew the church.
Enter Sean Wilkerson, who was then associate pastor at Snohomish Faith Assembly.
Seeing that there was a multitude of churches trying to accomplish the same thing, Wilkerson approached church leaders, asking them to work together to help create the Snohomish festival.
“It took us two years to get all the churches on board,” Wilkerson said.
Ekloff and Ashley hope the event shows the community that churches can work together.
“It’s our way of giving back to the community,” Ashley said. “We don’t try to sell anything or impress anybody with propaganda. We just want to provide a safe and fun venue to have a great Halloween.”
As kids step out into the cool autumn air to head for home, crunching on candy, event organizers hope they’ll also know the churches in Snohomish care about them.
And Wilkerson, now lead pastor at Mountainview Christian Fellowship in Sultan, hopes eventually he can get the five churches in his town on board to organize an event of their own.
Reporter Leita Hermanson Crossfield: 425-339-3449 or Lcrossfield@heraldnet.com.
If you go
Snohomish Children’s Carnival, 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the Snohomish Freshman Campus gymnasium, 601 Glen Ave., Snohomish.
Call 360-568-5100.
For more Halloween day events planned by local churches see Outreach, Page B5.
