The Fall Harvest Festival holds its first Witches Walk

Today the Fall Harvest Festival had its first Witches Walk. Held at the American West Heritage Center, the event helped create awareness for breast cancer. For the walk, participants dressed up in witch costumes and walked around the festival. Afterwards there was a witch pageant where those who dressed up could receive various awards such as best cackle or best broom.

The main focus of the walk was the service project. Volunteers helped send off comfort kits to breast cancer patients. They put in various items such as headrests, essential oils and socks to provide comfort to the recipient. There was a station where volunteers could write a personal note and put it in a box.

"We're selling shirts to help fund it," said Kelvin Finley, a volunteer who works in the marketing group for Malouf.

Malouf is a business that mainly sells pillows and bedding but also sends comfort kits to breast cancer patients. It went to several businesses, asking for item donations to put in around 1,500 comfort kits that will be sent to breast cancer patients.

"There were a bunch of companies that pitched in," Finley said. "We're kind of the orchestrators and there's a lot of people helping out."

The idea for the walk came from something already in place.

"We used to do what was called, What a Witch Wants, that was in downtown Logan," said Denise Lindsey, a volunteer who helped set up the festival. "The historical center approached me about combining it with their Fall Festival. One of the things I had wanted to do was a witches walk."

Lindsey said they wanted to do something meaningful for the walk.

"Where October is in conjunction with breast cancer awareness, we thought what a great opportunity to bring a little bit of focus to local people who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and the impact that the community has had on them," Lindsey said.

The center then contacted Malouf to create the service project.

"This is great," Finley said. "There's been cancer patients in my family, including breast cancer patients. So I've seen the struggle that they go through and to be able to provide some comfort, it's pretty awesome. It's a need that's often overlooked."

Lindsey and her family have also been affected by breast cancer.

"My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer," said Lindsey, as tears began to fall down her face. "So this has a lot of personal meaning to me. She's passed away now. The statistics show now that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. That's why I feel so strongly about it."

The Witches Walk was included in the price of the Fall Harvest Festival ticket.

Students donate shoes at Hobbits For Humanity

On Monday, Aggie Sustainability and Aggie Outdoor Volunteers teamed up to hold Hobbits For Humanity. This is the first year these organizations have held this event. A booth was set up on the northeast corner of the quad where students could donate their shoes and then walk around on campus barefoot — like the hobbits did in The Lord of the Rings saga.

“We thought it would apply to the same sort of demographic that might be interested in going around barefoot and doing service,” said Sarah Woodbury, the student director of Aggie Outdoor Volunteers. “Just to try and get a niche of students to be like ‘Oh that’s cool.’”

Students have the opportunity to donate shoes until Friday at the Val R. Christensen Service Center at the Taggart Student Center. The shoes will be delivered Saturday to St. Anne’s Center, a homeless shelter in Ogden.

“We got 41 pairs of shoes so far and people are still bringing them in until Saturday,” Woodbury said. “So far it’s been pretty successful, especially for our first year.’“

Nathan Staker, the student director of Aggie Sustainability, said the event was quick to catch students' eyes.

“I had a few students approach the table where we were set up,” Staker said. “They were asking ‘What is this? What is Hobbits For Humanities?’ So it really sparked an interest with students. They were very curious about what was going on.”

Even though both Woodbury and Staker considered the event successful, there are a few things they are considering changing in the future.

“With more advertising and letting students know that we are hosting the event, I think it would work a bit better than what we had,” Staker said.

“Next time we definitely want to put out yard signs a couple days in advanced because that would have gotten more people to come,” Woodbury said.

The organizations are hoping to make Hobbits For Humanities an event that happens once or twice a year.

“The coolest thing was watching people take shoes off their feet,” Woodbury said. “That was definitely the most rewarding thing for me.”

“It made me appreciate how good I have it, having shoes,” Staker said. “But also what somebody without shoes or who is homeless has to suffer from that day to day. It’s not a fun perspective. It gave me a greater appreciation for what I have and made me want to donate my shoes for that cause.”

Mountain Crest High School enforces its cyberbullying policy

On Spet. 21 Alina Brown, a student from Mountain Crest High School, was bothered by a message displayed on a poster for the school’s homecoming football game. The message read "You play ball like a girl." She took a picture and stated her concerns on Instagram.

Brown received more than 700 responses from friends and classmates. While some comments supported her views, others included negative vulgar language. When administration found out about the poster, it was taken down.

The poster was put up by a female student, referencing the movie "Sandlot."

"I haven't seen the comments or remarks, but I don't doubt that they were inappropriate and we don't condone that in any way," said Kirk McRae, the director of human resources for Cache County School District. "If it crosses the line to threatening or bullying that's when we feel like we need to
take appropriate steps to resolve."

The district's safe school policy states hazing, demeaning or bullying (including cyberbully activity) may be reason to remove a student from school or to be disciplined in some other way.

"We try to be very careful and only monitoring in our sphere of influence," McRae said. "We recognize that social media is a can of worms. Where we can and will take efforts to monitor, is when it either detracts from the educational environment or if there are illegal or threatening comments that affect a student or staff member. That's when we feel we have enough of a nexus to step in and take appropriate actions."

McRae said this policy isn't something new and the school had to enforce this policy on certain students

"We haven't changed polocies, we're just enforcing the polocies that currently in place," McRae said.
"I won't say who or what the response was. This was a case that was elevated to the point of them getting involved."

With this specific incident, McRae said the school handled the situation appropriately and has reached out to the Brown family.

"The school administration has worked very hard to understand their concerns and resolve those," McRae said. "We want every student to feel comfortable, safe and welcome there."

Mountain Crest High also has programs in place to help prevent bullying.

"One of the big things that we’re working on right now, every week during our home study time, we have a little video," said Craig Bracken, a counselor at Mountain Crest High School. "We call it the inside out program. With each week there is a different video with a different topic. This is week seven, so we’ve been doing this since the start of school. We would show them that clip and then we have them fill out a survey. They don’t need to put their name on it. What it's supposed to do is to help students to get the viewpoint of others, learn why it's important to respect and why it's important to not bully. "

In the counseling office, they take the surveys to collect data from them and tailor in interventions more specific for their school and students’ needs.

"So we have data from what the kids have told us and then we can use that data to help kids," Bracken said. "So this is what we’re doing as a school wide program to help with cyber-bullying, with bullying, with respect, with making Mountain Crest have a good atmosphere and good environment."