Officer’s Circle, the section of campus located near Fort Douglas that serves as student housing, morphed into “Officer’s Hollow” on Saturday and became filled with frightening residents such as mad scientists, pirates8212;and fiddle players.
The College of Social Work and the Bachelor of Social Work Student Association hosted the free event in an effort to reach out and benefit the children in the community surrounding the U.
Ellie Goldberg, social chairwoman for BSWSA, said the event was held to give children a place to safely trick-or-treat.
Adam Wende, a U graduate student, took his daughter Kaitlyn to the event because he said he prefers its more controlled environment to traditional trick-or-treating.
Each house in Officer’s Circle had its own theme, chosen by its residents. The themes ranged from popular fantasy movies such as “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Alice in Wonderland” to Western and sports themes.
The Service House transformed into “Nintendo-Land” for the occasion, which had residents dress up as famous Nintendo characters. The houses had games for attending children such as a version of “battle mode” from the Nintendo racing game Mario Kart, where children had balloons tied to their legs and then tried to pop all of the other contestants’ balloons before someone popped their own.
The house also had a version of Super Smash Bros., where the participants controlled a real-life character from the game. Ryan Price, a junior in math and physics, dressed up as Mario’s archnemesis Bowser for the event and could be seen lumbering around Officer’s Circle, doing his best bipedal-turtle impression.
“I’m still a 3-year-old at heart, so it isn’t that hard,” Price said.
Richard Payson/The Daily Utah ChronicleStudents dressed as Nintendo characters perform actions based on the buttons a trick-or-treater hits on a Nintendo controller as part of the Officer?s Hollow event on Saturday in Officer?s Circle. The event gave children a safe environment to trick-or-treat.