AVONDALE, Arizona – A student team at Estrella Mountain Community College (EMCC) will be hitting the streets on Halloween night to turn Trick-or-Treat into a food drive for St. Mary’s Food Bank.
The team of four education-major students chose a Halloween food drive as their Service Learning Project, required by their EMCC education professor, Rachel Holmes. Holmes integrates community service into her curriculum to teach students the importance of empathy and giving back to the community.
“It’s the right thing to do,” says Holmes. “If these students are going to be great teachers, they need to understand compassion and where to find resources for their students in need.”
Franciso Honne, the student team leader, is joined by his fellow EMCC education students Arlin Cordova-Hurtado, Bethany Stevens and Xanise Twinn. The name of their project is “Trick-or-Treat So Others Can Eat!” and have set a goal of collecting at least 500 canned goods.
“Giving back to the community is part of my learning,” says Honne. “Our team selected St. Mary’s Food Bank as our charity organization, and thought Halloween would be a fun way to collect canned goods, instead of candy.”
Since each of the team members live in different parts of the valley, they will be covering their respective neighborhoods in Buckeye, Avondale and Phoenix. The southwest valley teams will be assembling on Friday, Oct. 31 at 5:30 p.m. at the CVS located on the corner of Dysart and Thomas Roads in Avondale, and departing at 6 p.m.
Honne and his service learning team are also promoting the Halloween food drive on the EMCC campus to get can donations, encourage others to join their group on Halloween night, or to do a food drive in their own neighborhood.
“We are going to wear fun Halloween costumes, and I plan to decorate my pick-up truck,” says Honne. “We will be giving business cards to the homes we visit to make sure they know we are legit, and a reminder that St. Mary’s Food Bank needs more help, especially with the holidays coming up.”
Honne is in his second year of college with the goal of becoming a secondary education teacher with an emphasis in history and music. As a graduate of Buckeye Union High School, he is currently doing an internship at his alma mater teaching drumline.
Cordova-Hurtado wants to be a middle-school math teacher, Stevens plans to be a secondary special education teacher, and Twinn has her sights on becoming secondary teacher in South Korea.