Enough Halloween Candy! Trick-Treat for a Cause
Connect Halloween to Thanksgiving, Trick or Treat for the Hungry
Oct 15, 2009
Halloween's fun, all of it: the costumes, the candy, the spooky spiders and ooey-gooey spiderweb decorations. But it seems strange, in a tough economy, to spend $20 or $40 on candy, when millions of children face the possibility of hunger every day. According to the leading hunger organization, Feeding America (formerly called America's Second Harvest), there were 12.4 million "food insecure" kids in 2007 – and that was before unemployment started to rise. Just three weeks after Halloween comes Thanksgiving, which this year is likely to be marked by an eye-popping number of average Americans seeking assistance from charities just to eat a normal holiday turkey dinner. Plus, according to health experts, the nation's children are too fat, and eat too many sugary treats.
With so many mixed messages, perhaps it's time to recalibrate Halloween.
How to Trick or Treat for Thanksgiving Charity Meals
Why not give pennies to trick or treaters for Thanksgiving charity meals, just as some children used to trick or treat for UNICEF? Even if every family involved in Halloween festivities collected and contributed just $1, it would make a difference to already-stretched food banks.
Here are some ways to organize a Thanksgiving Hunger Charity Drive on Halloween, without being a spoil-sport.
- Parents Take the Lead. The "collect pennies for Thanksgiving dinner" idea can work if as few as five or ten parents in an apartment building, street, block or neighborhood organize it ahead of time. If a number of families can give trick-or-treaters money for charity – as well as candy (or non-food treats like stickers), then the kids will feel like it's "real." Or, present the idea to a club, class, athletic team, or other group that can take the idea and run with it.
- Get Kids Involved by Making Collection Cans. As part of the Halloween prep, children can make their own collection tins using jam jars or plastic take-out containers. (Adults can add a slit in the cover, and tape the sides together.)
- Clarify that the Pennies are for Charity. This is important! Make it clear to kids that the money being collected is for the needy, but the candy and other goodies are for them.
- Do a Little Math Lesson: This is an opportune moment to discuss how much it costs to feed a family, compared to how much it costs to "do" Halloween.
- Buy Less Candy, Use the Savings to Give for Charity. If the average family spends $10 on a 100-piece bag of candy, that's the equivalent of 1,000 pennies, or 200 nickles. If, on average, 50 kids come to the house on Halloween, each could be given 20 pennies or 4 nickles toward charity.
- Decide What Charity Will Receive the Contribution. Together, the family can decide how to contribute the collected money, for instance to a local shelter, food bank, or soup kitchen.
- Throw in an Extra Bag of Candy. If there's too much candy left over after Halloween, package a box or bag of it along with the charitable contribution.
With a record number of Americans going hungry and in need of assistance from food banks, why not take a little of the excess of Halloween, and apply it to the needy three weeks later, for Thanksgiving?
Adults who've had enough of Halloween candy hype – and calorie-conscious people hoping to avoid eating Halloween candy, can find alternative ways to celebrate the holiday. And if it seems a stretch to link Halloween with Thanksgiving in this way, there's always another option: Dress up like a Pilgrim. Or, better, a Thanksgiving turkey.
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