Life-size Candy Land

Apparently, volunteer students at Hastings College have started a new community event called Candy Land. Basically, they create a life-size version of the childhood favorite Hasbro game Candy Land, complete with candy-themed characters and a game board that spans a gymnasium, and in which the children themselves are the pawns.

According to the web site, the idea came from an outrageous example in a philosophy paper about Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, and has now turned into a bona-fide community event.

This is one of the largest volunteer-based immersive environment projects I've seen, and from the looks of the photos, it was probably a blast for the kids to experience and for the adults to create. I've been involved in smaller-scale environments for kids, and it's always well worth the effort. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that it doesn't matter if the environment you create doesn't look Disney perfect; when you make the effort to create something on an immersive scale, most people (especially children) can see the fantasy of what you were trying to build, rather than the reality.

Perhaps you should start up a similar immersive environment event in your community.