On Wednesday, October 31, 2001, I had the opportunity to take part in a community service that really has affected many people in the city of Cortland.
In the beginning of the semester, I attended the first NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) meeting of the year.  It was at this meeting I found out about the Hunger/Homeless Coalition.  My interest was immediately sparked, and I inquired more about the ways to help those who are hungry and homeless.  So, my volunteering began.

Our first attempt to fight hunger was a long time planning.  We truly spent the first two months of our semester planning this Trick-or-Eat.
What is a Trick-or-Eat?
This was an event planned to spread throughout the city of Cortland, completely set up by SUNY Cortland students.  The Trick-or-Eat was an activity that involved spreading throughout Cortland neighborhoods, collecting canned goods instead of candy on Halloween, to be delivered to the local soup kitchen, Loaves and Fishes.
For planning this event, we had to decide which neighborhoods would be best to collect food from, how to go about informing the citizens of our event, so they could be prepared with food, how to recruit volunteers for the activity, how we would get everybody to the neighborhoods, where to collect the food when we were finished, and where to donate it when the Trick-or-Eat was over.
We met every Tuesday and planned each of these necessary things before actually going out to collect the food.  One night, I actually had to sit and table for NYPIRG, outside of Corey Union, to recruit volunteers who might be interested in collecting food for the soup kitchen.  We recruited many volunteers this way, and a few days later it was time to go Trick-or-Eating!
On Halloween, a group of students set out for 2 hours to collect as much non-perishable food as possible.  I went with a group of seven students, to a very nice neighborhood in Cortland.  We had such a great time!  We went to each house, and many people thought we were trick-or-treaters, so they gave us candy too (which we got to keep for ourselves)!  We simply told people we were with the Hunger/Homeless Coalition of SUNY Cortland, and we were wondering if they would like to donate canned foods for our Trick-or-Eat to help the local soup kitchen.  Most people were very eager to help, and they gave each person a canned good for their bag.  One woman donated an entire box full of food!  It was amazing to see the generosity of people, most of which we do not get a chance to see just by living on campus.  It was a great to help others, while having fun at the same time.  However, we did face some challenges!
Along every path to goodness problems arise, and this night was no different!
One man accused Matt of being homeless.  When Matt asked if he would like to donate cans for the local soup kitchen, the man misunderstood and thought Matt was homeless!  It took a little while for Mat to convince him otherwise, but he finally did, and the man gladly donated food.  Another woman asked to see proof that we were actually doing this with the college.  Of course, we had SUNY Cortland bags and announcements of what to say at each house, so the woman believed us, but it took a little convincing!  Other than that, we did not face many challenges!
It was great to actually be part of a community, something often overlooked when away at school, and actually feel like I was doing something to benefit others, not just myself!
We all had a great time this Halloween, and now I am in the process of planning next month's event NYPIRG's branch of the Hunger/Homeless Coalition!