Painesville Township: Riverside students plan community Halloween event

Bryson Durst, The News-Herald, Willoughby, Ohio
·2 min read

Oct. 20—Riverside High School students are planning the district's first Spook Fest for Oct. 22, with plans to provide Halloween-themed activities for local children while also raising money for charity.

Visitors will be able to participate in carnival games, face painting, a Halloween movie, a photo cut-out station and a haunted house, while food and drinks will also be available, noted English teacher and National Honor Society adviser Christina Sherwood.

Volunteers from NHS and Student Initiative for Developing Excellence will staff the event, with students and advisors from SIDE running the haunted house.

Sherwood explained that NHS members Megan Lehner and Kayla Bobeczko, along with Riverside NHS President Emily White, have been planning the event since the summer, after NHS students formed small groups to plan community events and fundraisers for the 2022-23 school year.

"These three young ladies were the first ones to group themselves together, and they, I mean, they totally shot for the moon with this," she said. "This is a huge event, and so it's been really fun watching them kind of go through this."

"We wanted to do something that could bring everyone back together," Lehner explained, citing the isolation caused by the pandemic.

Sherwood said that the three students have recently worked to organize raffle baskets from community businesses. She and the students mentioned they currently have baskets or donations from locations including Trader Joe's, East Coast Custard and Riverside's Beaver Nation Spirit Store.

The students said that event preparation has also included making goody bags, as well as meeting with school officials and NHS council members.

"Our NHS group is helping us a lot with this event," White added. "If we didn't have them to volunteer for this, we would not be able to get it done."

Community members who are interested can attend Spook Fest from 4 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 22, as noted on a district Facebook post from Oct. 11. The event will be hosted at Riverside High School, 585 Riverside Drive, Painesville Township.

Admission will be $2. Sherwood said that proceeds will be split between NHS scholarships and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which has a local chapter in Independence.