Safety, Candy Abound At Ashmun Trunk-Or-Treat

Little mermaids, Minions and monsters gathered outside of the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program’s headquarters Monday — to take turns ​“trunk or treating” within a web of safety-minded community members and their cars.

Well over 100 families and friends lined up along Ashmun Street on Halloween to take part in the 10th year of that event, described as ​“the biggest baddest trunk or treat event in the city” in a personal advertisement on Facebook. 

This latest iteration marked the growth of the celebration from a small self-launched effort by New Havener Clarence Boyd to a Dixwell neighborhood affair filled with community spirit and bolstered by neighborhood partners.

Boyd, a long time employee at Yale University, said he founded the event 10 years ago after noticing that most kids ​“had to go outside the neighborhood to get the good candy.” 

To keep families from having to walk to wealthier and whiter areas for their Halloween treats, Boyd brought Snickers, Reese’s, and Sour Patches to his own turf. Over time and with each passing year, more people donated and sought out partnerships with Boyd. ​“I want to be the best. I don’t accept nothing but the best,” Boyd said.

After holding his car-to-car candy giveaway at various locations around the city, Boyd joined forces four years back with the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program to host the event out of their Ashmun Street parking lot. This year, Boyd said he was able to secure $1,500 worth of candy and snacks through donations from well over 100 residents and organizations.

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and shifting concerns about violence around the city, Boyd said more people started to recognize trunk or treats as the safer alternative to going door to door. ​“We was raised not to speak to strangers… but on Halloween you can accept candy from them?” he questioned. ​“We wanna make the environment safe for them.” 

Leonard Jahad, the executive director of the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program (CTVIP), said that his team partnered up with Boyd in 2019 upon moving into their current home at 230 Ashmun St. ​“We had our grand opening two weeks later and this was our first event,” he recalled. ​“We’re a community organization, and this aligns with our mission. We’re a living, breathing space here.”

Monday night saw plenty of local do-gooders like Boyd looking to spur some student smiles as well as representatives of the Yale Hiring Initiative reaching out to parents about job opportunities, resulting in car trunks on car trunks of candy.

Probation Officer Linda Baylor said she brought her daughter and two sons to the Ashmun Trunk or Treat for the first time this year because she felt it offered a safer alternative than going door to door.

“Covid shifted the minds of people permanently,” she said. ​“There’s just some mischievous behavior going door to door and you don’t know who you’re getting the candy from. You can’t trust it.”

Jahad and his partners’ ​“intentions are pure,” Baylor stated. ​“I love what this facility does and how they give back to the community,” she said of CTVIP. ​“This is just one of the little things they do.”

“A lot of people are out here to help out the kids,” agreed Tashauna Nesbitt — herself included.

Nesbitt, a nurse at Apple Rehab, dropped by the event with her daughter and three nephews. She was guarding that group to help out her sister, an occupational health worker at Yale who had to cover a shift that night.

Nesbitt said she enjoys taking the kids out each year — ​“It’s the smiles on their faces,” she stated, her own face lighting up. ​“I love seeing them happy.”

Trunk or treats, she suggested, can help parents and guardians caring for larger groups of kids to provide a fun Halloween in a safe and contained space without worrying so much about anyone drifting apart and getting lost or into trouble.

The partnership between Clarence Boyd and CTVIP, she said, reminded her of the full-circle network of care that defines New Haven. She recalled when she lost her own sister to gun violence in 2018, and said the community was quick to support her both emotionally and financially. 

For instance, she remembered how a crew of mothers placed her sister’s name — Tyekqua Nesbitt — on a memorial brick lining a West Hills garden that they grew themselves and dedicated to victims of gun violence. 

She said she also received honorary recognition from the city for taking in her niece and nephew who would have otherwise been orphaned after Tyekqua Nesbitt’s death. The Connecticut Probate Court’s Kinship & Family Respite Fund has helped Nesbitt cover the additional costs of caring for them.

“New Haven has really helped me a lot — helped my family a lot,” Nesbitt said. ​“My family suffered from gun violence,” she said, and the community and city ​“was open about it.” 

She also noted that the onset of Covid made families more in touch with potential dangers they were previously unaware of or overlooked — a factor that has contributed to the growth of trunk or treats like Boyd’s.

Tyrell Reid, who spent both Sunday and Monday evenings distributing handfuls on handfuls of candy, said Covid-19 may have also spurred him to focus on how he could contribute more kindly to his community. 

“I’ve just been thinking about it all this year,” he said. ​“I’m blessed. I didn’t stop working during the pandemic, so I was fortunate. I’m getting married, everything’s falling into place, and it’s time to start giving back.”

Reid, 32, is a corrections officer and real estate investor who lives in Hamden and grew up on Diamond Street in New Haven. He said he got involved in Clarence Boyd’s event this year after Boyd stopped by a separate trunk or treat that Reid held one night earlier at his parents’ Ashmun Street home.

“He came to mine so I decided to come by his,” he said. 

Reid said that in addition to ​“starting early” on his New Year’s resolution to do good, he believes that ​“it’s become kind of unsafe to go door to door.”

“I watch the news. I understand it’s time to keep it in the house,” he said. ​“I work in corrections, I see it first hand, and I know the community I grew up in,” he added. He said the possibility of fentanyl-laced candy plus ​“an increase in crime and violence” meant it simply wasn’t safe any longer to go door knocking on Halloween. 

Every attendee the Independent spoke to also cited concerns about door to door Halloween festivities endangering their children. But, they added, trunk or treats didn’t necessarily represent a regressive or less exciting time than Halloween’s past. Rather, they described it as an improved opportunity to spend time with their own communities.

Father Eddie Dancy, for example, said he’s found joy in returning to the Ashmun Street stop with his sons in recent years because ​“it’s just home for me.”

“I grew up in this neighborhood,” he said, pointing to the park next door to the CTVIP center. ​“I always ran through there. Used to be a big tree right there,” he remembered.

Though Ashmun Street was his prime spot for candies and community, he said, he and his two sons would circle around to more trunk or treats for the next few hours — until ​“mom gets off at eight o’clock,” he said.

For his son, Kayden Wiggins, the issue was less about where he was trick-or-treating and more so about his trick-or-treating strategy.

The seventh grader at Wexler-Grant Middle School — dressed as a bloodied, pig-faced butcher — said he was focused on getting more candy than his four-year-old brother, Tristian, who arrived in a Batman costume. (Asked why he chose Batman, the preschooler explained: ​“It’s cool. It’s fly.”) 

Wiggins said that while he hoped his family’s next stop after Ashmun Street would indeed be a house visit — to a haunted mansion — he knew it was more likely that he would continue on to his tradition of determining his and his brother’s Halloween scores. ​“I count everything first, and whoever gets the most candy wins,” he explained.

During that process, he separates his favorite snacks — Kit Kats and Mike and Ikes — from the ​“ones I’m not gonna eat,” so he can ​“sell them for money” later on.

While he’s had success with that latter business model, he said he’s unfortunately lost the candy hoarder competition to Tristian over the past few years.

This time around, he said, ​“I’m tryna make a come back.” 

Click here, here, and here for other Independent and Arts Paper articles about local Halloween celebrations.