The volunteers stood at their sides, like proud parents. “Remember to say thank you!” they instructed.
“Sometimes I say I haven’t gotten any candy so that I get more,” confided Michael Jackson to one of her leaders.
The students in the Quad who volunteered to have candy on hand were eager to welcome the little guests. “We miss doing this at home,” Cabot resident Nan R. Du ’12 said.
“I would absolutely do it again. It makes me feel like I’m living at home,” Cabot resident tutor Richard Johnston said.
Program directors said bringing their students to Harvard’s campus allows them to celebrate Halloween safely—an opportunity they may otherwise not have.
“Most of these kids won’t go trick-or-treating on Halloween. Many of them live in apartment buildings in Chinatown, which is not conducive to trick-or-treating,” said Lydia Krooss, a sophomore at Wellesley and one of the heads of Chinatown After School. “A lot of the kids are from immigrant families—the idea of trick-or-treating seems kind of strange.”
“Chinatown is very crowded and safety is a big issue for the younger ones,” said John Z. Zhao ’12, another head of Chinatown After School.
On Friday, Mission Hill volunteers gathered in the Quad to shepherd their students from dorm to dorm as they wildly shouted trick-or-treat songs.
“Maybe this will tire them out before the sleepover,” one volunteer suggested with a shrug.
A LASTING TRADITION
Though PBHA’s trick-or-treating events are one of the few ongoing Halloween traditions at Harvard, there is virtually no institutional record of their inception.
None of the heads of the programs interviewed knew which of the groups had started the trick-or-treating tradition.
PBHA Director of Programs Robert J. Bridgeman said the trick-or-treating traditions began before he arrived at PBHA 15 years ago.
While the origins of this tradition remain unclear, it is one of the few annual Halloween activities that still continues today.
For example, Harvard Crimson editors used to trick-or-treat at the homes of deans and administrators each Halloween and compare their candy offerings, according to Professor of Folklore and Mythology Stephen A. Mitchell and The Crimson’s archives. But the last record of Crimson trick-or-treating was in 1993.
Mitchell said he recalled Halloween events taking place in the upperclassmen Houses, but didn’t remember any annual traditions.
Dean of Freshman Thomas A. Dingman ’67 said institutionally-sponsored events for students, and occasionally, department-sponsored events for faculty families, are held from year to year.
Until a new tradition takes hold, it looks like the kids will be here to stay. “Everyone just likes it so much and it works so well, that I can’t imagine wanting to end it,” Krooss said.