STUDENT VOICE
Written by: Hannah Ellsworth, first-year Journalism student
Follow Hannah on Twitter @TrentVoice

On Halloween night Peterborough’s streets were flooded with students on a mission to promote positive change and charitable support within their community, as Trent University united with Kenner Collegiate and Vocational Institute (KCVI) for the annual Trick or Eat, an event run across Canada through the online organization Meal Exchange.

The gloomy weather did not deter students from dressing up in their Halloween finest and walking door- to-door down preapproved routes across the city to request donations of non-perishable food items toward Kawartha Food Share, a local organization which redistributes donated food items to local food banks throughout the entire Kawartha region.

Until recently the Trick or Eat event was managed through the Nursing program at Trent, but last year the initiative was taken over by Molly Raffan, Trent’s college residence life coordinator in charge of Living Learning Communities and Special Projects. Last year’s Trick or Eat event comprised 25 volunteers who collected a total of 868 pounds of food.

This year Ms. Raffan decided that in order to recruit more volunteers, she would attach the event to the Living Learning Communities (LLC) program. Among the participants were LLC members and staff, dons and other Trent associates. This year also marked the event’s first collaboration with the local high school KCVI.  A fun incentive for many participants was the chance to enter several contests held by Meal Exchange, including photography contests for photos taken during the event.

This year’s Trick or Eat campaign collected 936 pounds of food. The impressive result was aided by the fact that this year the local FreshCo location on Brock Street supplied Trick or Eat grocery carts in order to help transport food. Ms. Raffan was further pleased when it was decided that Kawartha Food Share would send their truck to collect the food at the end of the night, as the alternative would have been to pack the collected food items into her personal vehicle.

“Service learning is a tough thing to sell to students sometimes, because they associate it with a lot of extra stuff. Extra time, extra effort… This is a really fun way to work the service learning into something that’s really tangible and exciting for them,” Molly said.

Ms. Raffan described Trick or Eat as an opportunity for Trent students to build a relationship with the downtown Peterborough community, and emphasized the need for such opportunities on account of Trent’s location within the city. “The learning lessons happen organically, rather than being forced. Seeing the different parts of the city and how they connect, and how some might be a little more destitute, while others are well put together and lively… I think that that’s a really great lesson, and eyes open to become more understanding of what Peterborough is and the awesome people that are in it.”