TULALIP — The Arts & Technology High School on the Marysville Secondary Campus will be hosting a couple of seasonal activities for families who are looking to get into the Halloween spirit and show their support for the community.

Both the Kiddies Carnival and the Haunted House will run from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26, in conjunction with a collection drive for the Marysville Community Food Bank.

The Arts & Tech PTSA will accept donations for admission to the Kiddies Carnival, and will offer games, candy and drinks for children who are too young for the Haunted House. Just as the Kiddies Carnival raises funds for the senior graduation party, so too does the Haunted House help fund a number of events for both juniors and seniors, including proms, the senior field trip and graduation itself.

“The Haunted House is a bit too graphic for younger kids,” said Aleesha Paddleford, who’s supervised 17 of her Technical Theater students as they’ve prepared to transform seven classrooms and a hallway into a series of scares. “We’ve probably got about 60 kids total participating in putting it together, and while about 30 of them will be performers throughout the evening, the rest are volunteers who have helped with labor and supplies.”

Although students began meeting a month ago to start planning the Haunted House, Paddleford reported that they were asking her about the Haunted House almost as soon as the school year had started.

“It’s definitely become a school tradition,” Paddleford laughed.

For Arts & Tech seniors Tanner Jolly and Margot Reichlin, and junior Addison Maldonado, this year marked their first time working on the Haunted House, but all three had been so thrilled by last year’s Haunted House that they knew they wanted to take part in it this year.

“I wanted to do makeup, and design a room that helped me face my own fears,” said Maldonado, who was in charge of the toy and circus-themed room. “I’m really scared of clowns, so this is going to be interesting.”

“I want it to look really good,” said Jolly, who designed the hospital and asylum-themed room, before laughing, “I like creepy things. Horror is my favorite genre ever. The best way to scare people is to create an unsettling atmosphere, with weird imagery, and then have something that leaps out and shocks them.”

“I think spooky noises help a lot,” Maldonado agreed. “The whole school and community are looking forward to this and depending on us, but even though we’ve been planning it out for so long, we don’t actually get to set it all up until the day of the event, because we can’t just shut down all those classrooms.”

Reichlin has coordinated the preparations for both the “haunted classroom” and the “torture room,” and she joined Maldonado and Jolly in crediting their classmates with providing a number of creative and useful ideas.

“All the students have worked really hard on this,” Reichlin said.

“I’ve been to haunted houses that have charged $15 for what you’ll get here for $5,” Jolly said. “This shows the community what we can do when we come together.”

The Arts & Technology High School is located at 7204 27th Ave. NE in Marysville.