As the leaves fall and the weather starts to change, Lake Forest Academy is ready for its annual Halloween festivities. At Lake Forest Academy, Halloween isn’t just about dressing up in costumes and scaring people; it is more about the long-lasting traditions that make Halloween a special time of year. One of these traditions is Project Pumpkin. Project Pumpkin is a collaboration with A.J.Katzenmaier Academy in North Chicago. AJK holds an afternoon program that students can attend, where they participate in various fun activities such as STEM projects. Through the Interact club, LFA students have visited AJK numerous times and have offered fun STEM lessons and games.
Roxanne Kruger, Director of Service Learning and faculty advisor of the Interact club, emphasized, “The connection with AJK comes through our connection with North Chicago Community Partners, which is an organization that serves the North Chicago community in various ways.” This relationship with the school has been around for a while. Furthermore, the idea of Project Pumpkin came from Sarah Collins, LFA’s former Director of Service Learning. Ever since Covid-19, Kruger has decided to bring it back.
Every year during the week of Halloween, kids from the AJK after-school program experience trick-or-treating at LFA. However, it is not just any trick or treating but trunk or treating. LFA community members can decorate their cars and hand out candy in their trunks. This is a fun way for AJK kids to experience trick-or-treating, as North Chicago does not allow it. LFA students get paired up with an AJK student, and they both dress up. Kruger said it is a “Mentor-like situation with our students.” This event is fun for AJK and LFA students as it is a unique but fun way to celebrate Halloween. The LFA students gain a lot of learning as well. Kruger explained how LFA students get experience working with kids, being tour guides of the school, and meeting new people.
Santi Delgado ‘25 loved the experience. He said, “I was able to interact with the kids on a personal level and have fun with them.” He noted how he always has fun at trunk-or-treat and Project Pumpkin because each kid from AJK is so unique and fun to be around. He has participated in trunk-or-treat for the past two years and emphasized how nice it is to see familiar faces over the years as some of the same kids come back.
Beyond Project Pumpkin, proctors hosted a dorm decorating dorm cup leading up to Halloween. Each dorm had a budget of $75 to decorate their dorm and dorm rooms, and the dorm with the most Halloween spirit won a free study hours night. This means instead of study hours they got to have a fun dorm retreat, such as going to Dave and Busters or out to eat. Delgado said, “I decorated Atlass, ask anyone … and they will say I had the best decorations.” This competition allowed boarding students to build up their Halloween spirit as the month progressed.
A new tradition was the point spook shoot competition. In this competition, students and faculty were assigned a “target.” This game aimed to scare the target without them knowing and getting it on video. This was a fun way for students to scare their friends and maybe even their teachers.
Every year, LFA advisories have a tradition of decorating pumpkins. This year, the LFA community voted and decided on the scariest, the most creative, and the most LFA spirit advisory pumpkins. To win the competition, each advisory spent a significant amount of time after school working on decorating the pumpkin, and the result turned out well with many scary and creative pumpkins. There was a pumpkin decorated to look like Mr. Johnson, the Head of School, from Adam Gerber and Glinda Hall’s advisory; a gumball machine from Jennifer Madeley and Maggie Tennyson’s advisory; a black cat and Coraline from Lydia Wells and Sydney Siegel’s advisory, and many more unique ideas.
On Halloween, during morning meetings, LFA hosts a group and individual costume competition, where the best costume in each division is awarded bragging rights. This year, Jinki Hong ‘26 won the individual costume dressed as Darth Maul from Star Wars, and Myles Haight ’25 and Liam Franklin ‘25 won the group costume dressed up as the monkey and yellow hat man from Curious George. LFA also has trick-or-treating on campus during the evening of the 31st, where faculty and staff on campus stand outside their homes, dorms, or buildings and hand out candy to students. This is a fun opportunity for boarding and day students to trick or treat without going too far.
LFA has many Halloween traditions, and new ones are constantly emerging. These activities allow students to have fun on campus, especially those away from home!
