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The "All Saints" project was initially designed to provide senior citizens
with both peace of mind and safe companionship on Halloween evening.
During the recent decade, Halloween has degenerated from an evening of
innocent pranks and little children seeking treats to become an evening of
fear, violence and senseless vandalism. Coupled with this, the "treaters"
and "tricksters" tend to be larger. In fact, some youths in their late
teens, as well as adults, now go door to door in search of treats. With
recent media reports of violence on private property, it has been noted
that many seniors are fearful in their own homes. This is the goal of the
"All Saints"... namely to make our homes and community safe on Halloween
Night.
Last year, 138 Grade 12 Law students from Yarmouth Consolidated
Memorial High School volunteered to take part in this program. This year,
more than 150 students are expected to be involved all facets of the
program. As well, throughout Nova Scotia, several high schools are
considering getting involved some areas of the program.
Various projects undertaken under the "All Saints" program are:
Here students will be assisting senior citizens in their private homes.
Students who are placed in the private residences are in three distinct
categories.
First, seniors are encouraged to call the school to request assistance on
Halloween. For the most part, these seniors are either crippled,
handicapped and/or are living alone but still wish to play an active role
seeing little children on Halloween. Last year, seven senior citizens
requested such assistance in Yarmouth town alone.
Second, students will offer their services to relatives and consequently
spend Halloween evening with grandparents, great-aunts or great uncles.
Often the students are already planning on assisting some relations, but
with this program such interaction is encouraged. The intent here is for
the students to offer their services to family members. This will result
in the re-establishment of family ties often lacking in our busy modern-day
society.
Finally, students will assist seniors in their own neighbourhoods. These are often seniors with whom the students have become acquainted through working with them in areas such as lawn or home maintenance. Or, these seniors may be just neighbours who the students have gotten to know well over the past few years.
In co-operation with the local Housing Authority, teams of students are
placed in senior citizens complexes in the neighbouring town and county.
Here, the students join the residents in their common room area and on
Halloween evening they usually open the door for children in search of
treats. The purpose is two-fold. First, children are escorted to and from
the common area. by the "All Saints". This allows better control of the
access to Senior's Complexes. Secondly, the students undertake routine
exterior security checks of the complex. This is in co-operation with the
Housing Authority and the local police. Further, these "All Saints" are
always assisted and under the direction of a designated contact person
within the complex.
Under the "Kids Escort" teams of students escort young children from door-to-door in local area. This facet will be particularly helpful for single parent families or working families who wish their children to participate but due to job restrictions they cannot. This opens an opportunity for those children to participate in Halloween. As well, in communities where Halloween is not celebrated by way of the door-to-door visits, these students will assist organizers of Halloween parties and/or dances.
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