A group of Qualicum Beach kids will be taking a different approach to trick-or-treating this year.
About five kids will be taking part in the We Scare Hunger initiative, which is a program that sees kids gather food for their local food banks.
We Scare Hunger is part of the Me to We program. The mission statement for Me to We is: to inspire and enable people to become leaders and agents of change; offer volunteer trips that allow youth and adults to participate in health, education, and economic development projects abroad; and to empower people to change the world with their everyday choices by offering consumer products that give back.
This year, the group will be collecting non-perishables in the Qualicum Woods area of Qualicum Beach.
A few days before Halloween, they will deliver flyers to the houses they plan to visit on Halloween. In recent years, they have gathered more than 500 pounds of food.
Teegan Walshe, 10, said this is her third year collecting donations.
“Me and my sister found out about it through Me to We, the program, and decided we’d like to start a club and then one of the activities you can do is We Scare Hunger.”
This year, Walshe said, they will be taking the food donations to Manna Homeless Society, which will be distributing the food out of the Manna van on Saturday mornings.
Imogen Brown, 10, will also be accompanying Walshe on Halloween to collect the food. Brown said she found out about We Scare Hunger after Walshe stopped by her house one Halloween to collect the donations.
“I don’t think people should be gorging themselves on candy when other people are going hungry, so that’s why we do this instead of gorge ourselves on candy.”
However, Brown said people do still try to give them candy as well.
Shannon Cowan, Walshe’s mom, said during the girls’ first year of collecting for We Scare Hunger, some people donated full bags of food while others, who weren’t handing out candy, left the food donations on the doorstep for them to collect.