When thinking of Backlight Theatre Company, people might think of musical performances, lights and sound effects, highly-adorned costumes, handmade props, and live orchestra performances. While those assumptions are not far off, Backlight does other things than just work on musicals and plays.
One of the projects Backlight Theatre participates in during the school year is Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat (TOTSKCE).
Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat is a nation-wide service project sponsored by the International Thespian Society, an honor society for middle and high school theater students.
“[TOTSKCE] is a yearly service project where our students go ‘trick or treating’ [on Halloween night] at houses to pick up non-perishable foods instead of candy, [to] then donate to the Vernon Township food pantry,” Kevin Phelan, technical theater coordinator and Backlight Theatre Company sponsor, said.
Sixteen years ago, Phelan, along with other theater leadership at the time, worked on starting up the project at VHHS. Ever since then, Backlight Theatre has participated in the TOTSKCE project every year by donating non-perishable food items to the food pantry.
“I think this [project] really fits in well [with Backlight Theatre], because it’s a service project where we get to be together, and we get to reach out to the community in a way that we don’t do a lot of the rest of the year,” Phelan said. “It ties in really well with us, because honestly, our kids like putting on costumes. So they’re going to be out there ‘trick or treating’ anyway – this gives us a really good excuse to be silly, have a little fun, and make a good donation on behalf of our community.”
Phelan explained that the project has since been discontinued at a nationwide scale, but individual theater chapters at schools still choose to carry it out every year.
This year, the National Honor Society (NHS) has partnered up with Backlight Theatre in an attempt to increase the outreach of the project. To get more donations, Backlight usually passes out flyers to the houses they plan on stopping by with instructions on how to donate food and when the food will be picked up.
“Whenever we do that, we get more donations. [NHS] is going to help us by passing out those flyers, and then, they might be able to expand [the outreach of the project],” Phelan said.
Additionally, partnering with NHS might increase the area covered by students on Halloween night. Historically, Backlight has chosen to visit Deerpath and nearby neighborhoods for convenience purposes.
“We have tried [going to] other neighborhoods when we’ve had more people [volunteer], but it takes a lot more of a lift. [NHS] might be [going to] a different neighborhood [this year],” Phelan said.
The ‘Trick or Treating’ experience
Early on Halloween night, all students who volunteered to pick up donations meet in a designated place. The students split up into different cars, and seniors usually drive everyone around. Driving arrangements are made prior to that evening.
“Each car gets a route, and we go house to house. There are some [houses] that sign up beforehand, and [there are houses] that we do the day of,” Meghan Brockway (12) explained.
“There’s usually groups of four in each car. We get the canned goods and put them in bags in the back of the car. Then, the next day, we all drive to the food pantry and drop off the food there.”
Brockway has been part of Backlight Theatre all throughout her high school career.
“I started [volunteering for the project] freshman year, and I loved doing it then, so I’ve done it every year since. It’s a really good way to give back to the community,” Brockway said. “You get the ‘trick or treating’ element of going
house to house, which is really fun… I think doing this instead of a social event [on Halloween night] is really important, because every single year we’ve gotten so [many] canned goods that wouldn’t have been [donated all in one night] if we didn’t do this.”
According to Jonathan Protus (12), who has also participated in both Backlight Theatre and TOTSCKE all four years of high school, the most rewarding part of volunteering is going to the food pantry the next day, walking in with a great amount of donation bags and seeing the food pantry express their gratefulness.
Protus also mentioned how it’s important for people to have an understanding of what’s going on in their community
and how they can help. Volunteering for this project is one of the ways theater students have been able to connect with their community.
Backlight Theatre has four student officers who are responsible for managing different projects. Maryanna Teeluck- singh (11) is the Backlight Theatre officer responsible for promoting TOTSKCE on social media in an attempt to
increase its outreach.
Teelucksingh believes the project embodies the values Backlight Theatre strives to represent, such as inclusivity and kindness.
“We care about people, we see each other through difficult times, and we want to give back to the community because that’s what the arts are about: [giving] back to the community and [helping] people feel like they belong,” Teeluck-singh said.
BACKLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY VALUES
