Bringing in the Halloween spirit, students assisted with the YMCA-hosted Spooktacular community event. The event took place on Saturday, Oct. 26, and consisted of a range of spooky activities catered towards attendees, including live music performances, a haunted trail, and various Halloween-themed booths.
The Fiber Arts Club was a notable Westwood contribution to the community event, who participated by selling their crochet creations to the general public, advertising and supplying a variety of products from plushies to keychains.
“We’re just here to sell some crochet stuff because there’s a lot of crafts like ghosts, pumpkins, and penguins [that we made],” Fiber Arts Club President Hannah Au’ 26 said. “[The time it takes to make a product can vary], while some take six hours, some, like mine, take 18 hours, and some can take 15 minutes.”
Making it their goal to make the most of one of their only chances throughout the year to engage with the wider local community, the club enjoyed being able to share their creations and interact with the Austin population.
“I love to crochet, and I love sharing that with other people,” Fiber Arts Club member Brooklyn Tipps ’28 said. “I just like sharing the love and joy that brings to people.”
Another prominent addition to Westwood’s contributions to the event was the Engineering Club, who also crafted innovative activities that encouraged and strived to spread a passion for engineering in the community. Many of these activities were catered towards the younger populations present at the event.
“Our activity is basically taking five pieces of index cards and [trying] to make a tower,” Engineering Club Recruitment Lead Dhani Ruhela ‘26 said. “The objective is to make the tallest tower that can withstand the weight of a phone.”
The event, and especially the involvement of high school clubs, was possible because of Associate Vice President of Operations Ms. Adrienne Barnett, the lead organizer for the Spooktacular.
“[I think it’s important to include groups like this] because for me it’s about showcasing the talent,” Ms. Barnett said.” I am a Westwood alumni, so I’ve worked with the teen clubs last year, and I just wanted to be able to showcase the talent of our local teens.”
While discussing the overall importance of the event, Ms. Barnett shared that the Spooktacular event aligned perfectly with the larger, community-centric mission of YMCA, and she hoped to manifest this mission as perfectly as she could in an effort to appeal to local audiences and child participants.
“We’re all about community and building family, so having a place where all of our community can come for free and have fun totally aligns with our mission,” Ms. Barnett said.
The hefty turnout of the event reflected Ms. Barnett’s hopes that the event would provide for an opportunity of quality community bonding, with a record amount of visitors this year. Amounting to over 1000 participants in the Halloween festivities, Ms. Barnett and her team were able to successfully cultivate the spooky spirit in the local community, all the while promoting student-led initiatives to attendees.
“My friend suggested that this is a good event, [so I wanted to try it out],” Spooktacular attendee Naresh Golla said. “A lot of people came together [during this event], so we got to know each other. It’s fun for the kids too.”
