Trunk N Treats

Our annual Trunk ‘N Treat outreach event, held on Saturday, Oct. 31 was another smashing success with an attendance of well -over 1,000 children and families visiting our 5th St. Parking Lot. We revel in this high energy evening witnessing the smiles and abundance of love exuding from the children dressed in colorful costumes from horrifying monsters to whimsical and fantasy characters.

Coordinating this ministry event were Kelli Martines, Mark Teagle and Barbara Hiura. We are also thrilled at our church ministry participation. We had a record 13 cars and 38 participants. But what makes our cars unique is they are truly a representative sampling of our church membership and ministries. New this year as the “Boonana” car were from our Children and Family Ministries with newly appointed staff person, Caroline Waddington and her friend, Eva. Our other new car trunk dressers were Lyn Haberstock (the pirate) and her Ninja sidekick, Barbara Mulford. And because it was a Saturday, our Compassion Ministry team of Clarissa Johnston-Abril and Aton Abril had the Pumpkin car and our “Hello Kitty” car was composed of Carmen and Ashley Cook with Judie Kanemoto and Judy Yasutake. Additionally, we had a Nichigo Ministry car with Michiko Collins, Akiko Buchanan and the Gordons; Rev. John had a “Jurassic Park,” theme,  Assistant Pastor, Mark Teagle had his usual Peanuts car with Snoopy, the Wesley Jazz Band was represented with bandleader Wayne and Shizuko Adachi; our Food Distribution program had Bev and Hector Acuna s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, UWF had Terri Koike as a Union soldier and Cynthia Fukuda (Indiana Jones),  Roy and Hannah Takeuchi with Doug and Ellen Takeuchi were as crayons, and  our office admin, Terri Thornton and her husband were the Grinch and a Whoville member. We were absolutely thrilled at our church participation this year and our parking lot was at capacity. This was our very effective outreach for our church and building relationships with the Japantown community. Serving to make this event run smoothly and capturing moments were Ryan Miyahara, Misao Kusuda and Hikaru Bakoshi.

Clarissa Johnston-Abril

Lyn Haberstock and Barbara Mulford

Carmen and Ashley Cook