This year, Liberty’s Haunted Halls was much smaller than previous years, with only two clubs participating: National Honor Society (NHS) and National Honor Society of Dance Arts (NHSDA).
What is Haunted Halls?Haunted Halls is a community event that Liberty (particularly, Liberty Dance) has been hosting for at least 15 years, under various names. In the past, this event has been called “Safe Trick-or-Treat”,
“Trunk-or-Treat”, and “Dance Macabre”. For the past 5 years, however, “Haunted Halls” has been the most well-known name for the event.
The point of Haunted Halls, and the reason it is hosted around Halloween each year, is that it’s meant to be a safe alternative to traditional Trick-or-Treating. Ava Smith, a member of both NHS and NHSDA, described the event as, “… Trick-or-Treating inside a safe, confined space. If parents don’t want to take their kids out too late, they can come to the school and Trick-or-Treat around the school.”
Each year, participating clubs put together individual pieces of the event so that kids have more options for activities. Games, activities, decorations, and candy are usually enough to keep children entertained, but some clubs go above and beyond. For example, NHSDA put on a small dance party for the kids and set up Just Dance 2024, to keep them active.
This year, however, Haunted Halls didn’t have the same “zing” that previous Halloween events had. As Smith put it, “In the past, [Haunted Halls] has been great. It’s been super busy, [and] it’s been really good, energy-wise. But this year, only two clubs participated so it was much, much, much smaller.”
Bayli Fuchs, NHSDA president, agreed on this point, expressing that, “I think it would be cooler if we could get more clubs involved. I know that last year, we had a haunted house. If we could get more stuff like that back in, I think it’d be cool.”
Making the most of it
Despite the extremely small scale of Haunted Halls this year, participating members of NHS and NHSDA still made the most of the event, and had fun with it. Both clubs were described as “very focused” when setting up, and multiple participants—among students and staff—expressed the excitement they felt helping out the community.
Leslie Williams, the Dance director of Liberty and NHSDA sponsor, said her favorite part of participating in Haunted Halls was helping the community. She said, “I love doing things for the community; things that are free for the community, [where people can] be involved and students participate.”
Fuchs agreed, adding her own appreciation for Haunted Halls and saying, “I think it’s a really good idea to have a safe, controlled environment for kids to still get Halloween experiences, but in a safer way. I also love Dance, and I love to help out when I can. It’s so cute to offer Just Dance, and I feel like it’s the cutest idea ever for them to come out and hang out, dance, and eat candy.”
Smith, while still having an appreciation for the community, expressed how Haunted Halls contributed to Halloween spirit, saying that, “I just love Halloween, and [Haunted Halls] is always before Trick-or-Treating actually starts. So, it’s like ‘pre-Trick-or-Treating’. I like seeing the costumes that everyone has. Some of the kids I’ve seen have really fire costumes.”
While Haunted Halls scaled down this year compared to previous years, NHS and NHSDA still came together to give the community an event to enjoy. Members of both clubs hope for more clubs to get involved next year, but that will be up to club sponsors to decide.
