By Jeanne Champion Fisch

Community Columnist

October is a beautiful time of the year with the autumn colors on the trees and in the fields. The weather is slowly turning cooler and the daylight is getting shorter; however, I hope the weather will not be too cool for our October Tales event sponsored by the Westover library on Saturday, Oct. 21, from 5-8 p.m. in Westover Park.

Preparations will begin the preceding Thursday and Friday with the transportation of numerous boxes of Halloween decorations from storage to the library. With help from our many volunteers, we will begin the process of transforming Westover Park into a kid-friendly Halloween venue that will include witches, spiders, cats and goblins.

Local businesses have donated coupons to be added to the children’s trick-or-treat bags, and Publix is donating Halloween cupcakes. The Westover Seniors group will assemble these bags of goodies during their Wednesday meeting. They are always willing to help with our city’s projects – what would we do without them? Annette Tyler heads up the Seniors group and the Westover Library.

Early in the morning on Saturday, Oct. 21^, the final preparations will begin and Westover Park will be transformed into an October Tales wonderland. Volunteers will come during the day to help with the following decorating tasks:

-Hanging up numerous strings of orange and purple lights.

-Unloading and setting up various Halloween blow-ups.

-Hanging up spiders, bats, witches, ghosts, streamers.

-Decorating and arranging tables under the park’s main picnic pavilion.

-Setting up the large inflatable (Power Rangers).

After the children start arriving at 5 p.m., there will be time for enjoying the Power Rangers inflatable and other activities. There will be a Halloween story time: the children always love to hear “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat” and “Scaredy-Cat, Splat!”.

Then there will be food (hot dogs, chips, cupcakes and goodies) prepared by more volunteers for all the little “ghosts,” “goblins,” “princesses,” etc.

We are looking forward to celebrating October Tales with our community. Everyone is welcome to this free event sponsored by the Westover Library.

Westover Park is located behind City Hall at 3312 Westover Road, Westover, AL 35147.