We have been handing out candy tonight to a bevy of all ethnicities of kids from our neighborhood. They have been unfailingly polite. It reminds me of the importance of living in a town that reflects the diversity of our nation. Anyone who opened their door this evening to these little costumed kids would be hard pressed to continue to harbor fear of what our nation is becoming!

My Halloween was markedly different since we went on our own, not with our parents. But as self centered as our candy collecting was, we were also participating in a penny drive for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund. We had rinsed out one of our milk cartons and pasted a UNICEF label on it. Later we used the little cardboard boxes shown above. Each year our whole class would assemble our containers. We asked for pennies after we asked for candy. As the above image says “1 penny buys 5 cartons of milk.” We pooled all our money at school, delighted with how much we had jointly obtained.

Kids learn values by doing. We learned that there were kids around the world who needed help. We were shown that by simply collecting pennies as we collected candy we could help them. We were proud to play a part. We were learning about our responsibility to children we would never meet. It’s a lesson I never forgot.