Freshmen Turn Yard Over To Local Trick-or-Treaters

Three-foot Draculas, miniature Pacmen, and a profusion of pint-sized E. T. lookalikes filled the Yard yesterday, as the Freshman Council held its first-ever Halloween celebration for Cambridge elementary school children.

About 250 students showed up for the festivities and were treated to a haunted house in the Strauss Hall common room, a bluegrass concert in the Yard, a storyteller, and a performance by Brian the Clown (in reality Greenough resident Brian L. Kenet '86).

After the clown performance, the children toured the Yard, along with Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci, the Harvard Band and the men's rugby team, before returning to school.

The afternoon was sponsored by the Council and the University's newly formed Public Service Program (PSP), with the help of the Cambridge Department of Social Services. "We really wanted to get Harvard people involved with the community," PSP Coordinator Ann M. Wacker said Wednesday.

Four weeks in the planning, the party was the brainchild of Associate Freshman Dean W. C. Buriss Young '55, who said yesterday he conceived it over the summer while considering activities for the Freshman Council.

Poison Fears

Parents and teachers interviewed yesterday also expressed pleasure with the party.

"Parents don't want to take their kids out trick-or-treating this year, and they're very happy to see this alternative," said Carol Inniss, head teacher at the Roberts After-School Program, which sent 20 children to the party.

Many local cities have banned trick-or-treating this Halloween, in the wake of the Tylenol deaths and other incidents of poisoning from contaminated consumer products.

These kids are to be comenraded," Vellucci said yesterday of the Harvard organizers. "They're demonstrating that they care for the children of Cambridge. This is a step which can bring Harvard closer to the city's kids."

The PSP and the Freshman Council paid about $200 for the afternoon, mostly for transportation Wacher said