Halloween carnival coming to Strathmore

Times Reporter

 

Halloween is approaching fast and students at Holy Cross Collegiate, HCC, have a night of thrills planned. Sarah Lyons, band director for HCC and her students have been fundraising for over a month already for their May trip to Disneyland, and their Halloween Carnival is the last big event for their fundraising efforts. 

“The kids are really excited, the high school kids are going to help run all of the booths,” said Lyons. The carnival takes place on Oct. 22, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the HCC gym. 

One of the students learned how to read palms, and she is going to do the fortune telling,  Lyons said they are still looking for contestants to be a part of a milder version of the old T.V show, Fear Factor.  

“It goes through varying stages. The first one might be eating hot sauce with something, you know like a gross combination of things, where the last round would be like maybe eating some type of bug like a chocolate covered ant or some type of worm, something like that,” said Lyons. 

There will be a haunted house set up on the stage, pumpkin carving and apple bobbing. There will also be a dance competition to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and a costume contest. 

The costume contest is Disney-themed to represent the band’s trip to Disneyland, and so in order to win, a person must be dressed Disney. 

“We’re going to have those candy jars, you guess how many candies are in it and you win a jar,” said Lyons. 

Telus donated a pay-as-you-go phone which will be the big prize and Wildflower Ranch is sponsoring the carnival.  

It’s going to be $5 a person or $20 for a family. There is no restriction on how big the family must be – even if there are six little kids and two adults, it would still only be $20. 

Unless someone donates pumpkins, Lyons said they will probably buy 10 of the big ones. The contestants would draw out their design and then the top 10 designs would be carved. 

Everything will be kind of happening at once except the dance and the pumpkin carving. 

The only other fundraising the band has is the fresh pine wreaths they are selling. The students will begin selling the wreaths in October and they will be delivered the first week of December. 

 “They last for quite a while, if you keep them outside they last a long time,” said Lyons. 

 The cost for each student to go to Disneyland is $950 and with the $5,000 from the coupon book sales, the school was able to subsidize it to $750 per student. 

“That was kind of our initial goal, to get it down to $750. If we raise $20,000 or just over $20,000, all the kids go for free, so that’s like my dream goal,” said Lyons. 

Already with the $5,000 the coupon books raised and more recently the $3,769 they raised with the bottle drive on the 25 the band is just halfway to their goal.