The candy bowls may be empty and jack-o’-lanterns may have flickered out, but the echoes of Halloween’s mischief and merriment linger on. As we all pack up our costumes for another year, it’s time to look back on some of the fun QUEST students had, both through class competitions and giving back to the community.

BMGT 190H students on Halloween!

BMGT 190H Professor Dr. Huffman had an amazing idea to lift morale by hosting a group costume competition for his students – the winners would receive prizes, which included the infamous QUEST padfolio.

I had a chance to speak with one of the winners, Jimmy Miller. Miller of Cohort 41 worked with his teammates to dress up as characters from Super Mario Bros (Mario, Luigi, Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Peach). Miller’s friend group had dressed up and had the same costumes and thought it was a cool idea so he borrowed their outfits for this QUEST competition. When asked about the experience, he said, “It was funny to see how everyone improvised a story about their costumes to be a cohesive group. Watching everyone’s presentation made me laugh, and it was nice to win the famous QUEST padfolio that everyone talks about.”

Jimmy Miller, right, and his winning team

I also got to speak with Tony Liberatore, another student in Cohort 41, who dressed up for the costume competition individually as an elephant. When asked about his decision, he said, “Our team didn’t have any costumes in mind and a few teammates didn’t wear costumes so I just wore the funniest and comfiest costume I had, a leftover costume from an old ENES100H presentation.” Liberatore also noted how the BMGT 190H TAs dressed up in matching Sully and Mike onesies from Monsters Inc.!

In addition to this exciting costume competition, QUEST Creative and QUEST Serves came together to give back to the community by hosting a Haunted Mask Makeover event. During this event, they painted masks, wrote letters, and created goodie bags to donate to a children’s hospital. I had the chance to speak to Jacob Fishman of Cohort 40, the Lead of QUEST Serves about this event.

QUESTees at the Mask Painting Event

His inspiration behind this? Coming up with a way that QUEST Serves could bring some Halloween cheer to Children’s National. There, of course, were some specific considerations he had to keep in mind when planning an activity for a children’s hospital; they had to make sure that all of their donations conformed to the hospital’s donation regulations to keep all of their patients safe. When asked about the experience, Fishman said, “The most rewarding moment was when we were packing up all of the masks and gift bags into a box at the end of the night, and we saw that we had made well over 30 masks and bags to donate to the hospital.”

With that, the Halloween season comes to an end, but this is only the start of new traditions to come. Who knows who the next person to win a QUEST padfolio will be? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out!