Trick-or-Treating for Canned Food

By Cornelia Seigneur

Trick or Treat Group

One came as a hippie, another as a pirate, still another as Willy Wonka. Then there were the three cowboys. Make that, cowgirls. There was the man with the cape – let’s call him the caped crusader. Still another, came wearing a mask that has been in his family for years. About 15 in all for a fun-filled Halloween night of trick-or-treating.

But these high school students and leaders were not in it for the candy.

Instead, when they approached doors in the Tualatin neighborhood near church, they asked for mac and cheese. Or tuna fish. Or canned beans or corn or fruit cocktail or Campbell’s soup.  

High School Ministry Youth Pastor Branden Campbell—a.k.a. the one with the cape—dubbed the evening  “Trick-or-Treat for Canned Food.”

Last year, he’d done something similar with students from the Spokane church where he was youth pastor. On a night traditionally all about what you can get, not what you can give, he wanted to get kids here reaching out as well. 

“It was hilarious. You’d say ‘Trick or canned food’ – or ‘Mac and Cheese and Tuna Fish,’ and you’d get a funny look at first,” Branden says. “Some people at the homes we stopped by did not listen and they’d put candy in our bags and we would stop them and say ‘No, we are collecting food for the Tualatin Food bank.’”

With the economy in the shape it is in, Branden found out that Tualatin School House Pantry was in need. Rolling Hills partners with this local food bank, whose mission is to provide emergency food to those in need, to help eliminate hunger.

After an hour and a half of trick-or-treating for food staples, students and leaders had collected 650 pounds of food.

Branden’s passion is outreach.

“That is the mission of Jesus. Look who He came to reach out to—the prostitutes, the sinners, the broken-hearted.”

Plus, Branden notes, “Outreach gets the kids’ focus off of ‘Planet Me.’ I think that the message of Jesus is ‘selfless serving.’ The God of the universe came not to be served but to serve. It is not only something we should do, but it is who we are.”

For more information on the Tualatin School House Pantry, visit: www.schoolhousepantry.org or www.rollinghills.org/tualatin-school-house-pantry2

Reach writer Cornelia Seigneur at her blog: 
www.corneliaseigneur.com or via e-mail at: inaword@comcast.net

Photos courtesy Brandon and Brenda Porter