Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites: West Valley one•n•ten’s Halloween Spooktacular III!
By Avi Vieira
Glendale
With darkness falling early and a chill in the air, all manner of ghouls, goblins, and creatures of the night assembled in Glendale for West Valley one•n•ten’s 3rd annual Halloween Party! Always a favorite night of year for our youth, the evening was filled with games, treats, a costume contest, and tons of fun. The evening began with an all-time favorite game: mummy wrap! With the group broken into small teams, a volunteer stood as their teammates wound rolls of toilet paper (Great Scott!) until they were completely covered from head to toe.
With the group warmed up and the Halloween playlist playing in the background, the next event of the evening was splitting the group into two teams for a cotton ball relay. Choosing either a fork or a spoon, teammates passed cotton balls to each other down to buckets at the end of the room. A surprisingly difficult and deceptively entertaining game, the youth seemed to enjoy trying to use their spoons and forks with greater or lesser effectiveness and having a friendly competition with the other team. The winners were presented with fabulous gift card prizes. The third game of the evening was a take on the classic bobbing for apples; in this case it was bobbing for apples on a string and having to carry the apples in their mouth to a waiting judge. The winning team was presented with gift cards and a “Gay Bar” energy bar.
With the games over, the night moved on to the costume contest! With our volunteers as judges, the youth presented their fun, spooky, and creative costumes. The costumes ranged from witches and Celtic princesses to Pokemon characters, The Joker and Harley Quinn, a “player,” zombies, convicts, Supergirl and even youth dressing as their past selves. Judges awarded prizes including The Zombie Survival Guide and a DVD of the zombie blockbuster Warm Bodies. With the contest over, the rest of the evening was devoted to socializing and even getting in a group participation dancing the “Time Warp.”
It made for a fun and magical evening as we say goodbye to JAG center which has been our on again / off again home. West Valley one•n•ten is moving and as of November 5th will now be at Youth and Families First at 5540 W. Glendale Ave. Suite B106 (just west of 55th Ave.)