One of my favorite holidays of Autumn is Halloween. Like most of our UU congregations, we collect money in the spirit of Halloween giving for UNICEF. I decided last Halloween that we should try something a little different than what we did the preceding years. Instead of trick-or-treating for UNICEF the week of Halloween, we designated the whole month of October after the Sunday service to collect for this worthy cause. Additionally, we made a Saturday afternoon a time for our UU kids to reach out to the community by collecting money in front of a well-known store chain.

The results of this effort were more than expected! In our past endeavors we only received small sums for UNICEF. Last October we were able to collect $123.00 for UNICEF.

The Saturday that we collected in front of the store for a few hours we actually doubled the amount we received from the weekly fellowship collections.

We even had parents that inquired about the boxes for UNICEF, wanting them for their children as an alternative to trick-or-treating for candy on Halloween.

From our effort we contributed dollars instead of pennies for UNICEF and it was a great way to extend the "spirit" of the Halloween season!