Although tricks and treats are usually the focus on Halloween, community service was a major part of this year’s holiday for many San Jose residents.
San Jose Strong, a grassroots organization focused on helping the community, and its subcommittee, Walk for Solidarity, hosted a Costumed Community Care event Saturday afternoon which began at San Jose City Hall. San Jose community members assembled and distributed care packages for people facing homelessness
in downtown.
Volunteers split into three subgroups to distribute the packages to individuals around San Jose. Each of the groups traveled to either St. James Park, Guadalupe River Park and Gardens or other areas around downtown.
Some group members walked to Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, where they visited an unhoused community under a bridge to pass out the meals and packages.
San Jose Strong founder Mary Celestin said both groups are completely volunteer based. Celestin said she started the group after making “a guide to activism for San Jose” for her Instagram audience in June which gained a lot of attention and pushed her into making a page dedicated to showing people how they can help
their community.
“[The participation has been] really just awesome,” Celestin said. “People love San Jose and just want to help out doing really, really cool things, such as the Walk for Solidarity team who really pulled this off.”
San Jose Strong partnered with a local activist who goes by the alias Spiderman of Cupertino, who first envisioned the event after connecting with the organization on Instagram.
Spiderman of Cupertino moved from Cupertino to San Jose to focus on helping unhoused people. He began his community service six months ago after being inspired by Batman of San Jose, another masked activist, and seeing a growing population of unhoused individuals at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said he wanted to bring more festivity to the San Jose unhoused community since Halloween events were limited this year because of COVID-19.
“I think the aspect of wearing the Spider-Man mask and/or costume adds a little bit of excitement to people’s lives and I think people enjoy dressing up,” he said. “I think it helps encourage them to get out into the community and see these issues firsthand.”
Volunteers met in front of City Hall to prepare the packages with supplies they had brought and hot breakfasts that were donated by Feed the Block, a nonprofit program founded by B.L.A.C.K. (Black Liberation And Collective Knowledge) Outreach San Jose, HERO Tent and Black Guerilla Coalition, that gives out meals at City Hall every Saturday.
Volunteers made about 200 care packages before and during the event. Celestin said San Jose Strong had online reservations on the organization’s Instagram page where volunteers committed to making a certain number of packages.
The care packages contained snacks, fresh fruit, water bottles, sanitary items, masks and menstrual products.
Lanna Togami, founder of Walk for Solidarity, made Halloween cookies for the occasion to put inside the packages.
Togami said that she wanted to put in the extra effort for unhoused people because of the holiday.
“It’s a little extra spice,” Togami said. “It’s like the little things that make the difference.”
Costumed volunteers, some of whom were dressed as Kim Possible, a unicorn or a tiger, wished unhoused community members a happy Halloween as they handed out care packages.
The various groups handed out bags until they were out of care packages and went back to City Hall to dismiss
the volunteers.
“Halloween’s my favorite holiday,” Celestin said. “I’m just really excited to get to spend a day helping the community and seeing cool people and still get to come out jazzed out for the Halloween vibe.”
