Maya McFadden photos
Sandra and her four kids stop by Trunk or Treat for second year.
Five year old Thiago Arichabala dressed as Chucky.
The light at the end of a spooky spider- and cobweb-filled tunnel at Edgewood Park was a hefty bag of Halloween treats.
That was the scene Monday evening in Edgewood Park, where 2,000 candy bags were distributed for the city’s Youth and Recreation department’s annual “Trunk or Treat” celebration.
This year’s drive-through event was hosted along Edgewood Park’s walking trail. Families drove and walked through the celebration, avoiding tricks and collecting treats.
Most parents emphasized the helpfulness of the alternative Halloween celebration as a safer option for kids to get dressed up and enjoy the holiday without having to go trick-or-treating door to door, in fear of them picking up tampered-with candy.
Cars in line to enter Trunk or Treat trail Monday afternoon.
Young New Haveners drove and walked up while dressed as firefighters, Sonic the Hedgehog, Michael Myers, Bat Girl, and Mario as they passed through the Trunk or Treat event.
Hundreds of cars lined Edgewood Avenue Monday as early as 4 p.m. for the event, which began at 5. The drive-up line stretched beyond Yale Avenue as families waited to wheel through the trail.
When cars arrived at the end of the trail, families were greeted by volunteers like Shubert Theatre Education Director Kelly Wuzzardo, also known Monday night as Pooh Bear.
The Youth and Recreation Department got support from partners like the Arabic Temple No. 40 and Arabic Court No. 95, which joined the event for a sixth year running.
Volunteers Dru Elliott, Michelle Streeter, Deirdre Brown, and Lashaya Patterson dressed as a scarecrow and unicorn to wish families driving on the trail a happy Halloween. Support was also provided by Yale Baby School and more than 200 first-year students at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU).
Yale Baby School team Kathryn Armstrong, Lia Koski, and Ari Letrou volunteer for their first year at Trunk or Treat.
Volunteers line trail and prep to greet families driving through.
While driving past, kids yelled out to those dressed in costumes:
“Hi Pooh!”
“I love you Minnie Mouse!”
Jalexys, Yeitza, and Nazeer.
Yeitza walked over to Edgewood park with Venom and an Anime character, better known as her son Nazeer, 7, and daughter Jalexys, 11.
The family joined the trunk or treat event for the first time Monday for a celebration of Halloween and Yeitza’s birthday.
Nazeer looked forward to getting his favorite candy, Skittles, and Jalexys’s favorite, Hershey’s.
Yeitza said she stopped bringing her kids trick or treating in the neighborhood door-to-door at the start of the Covid pandemic. They now celebrate Halloween at city-hosted events like Monday’s because “it seems safer,” Yeitza said.
Riley a.k.a "Good Harley Quinn."
Six-year-old Riley came equipped with a red baseball bat and dressed as a “good Harley Quinn” for the Monday event. Her mother Robin Graham parked in the parking lot and they walked down the trail to avoid the car traffic.
Graham also stopped taking her daughter door knocking for the holiday to be safer during the pandemic. Over the past two years, Riley and Robin hosted Halloween parties with the family that would involve a more homey version of door knocking. The family youth would knock at bedroom and bathroom doors in the house to trick or treat.
After securing the treats Monday, the duo headed home to continue their holiday tradition of painting pumpkins and snacking on baked pumpkin seeds.
City Youth and Rec Director Gwendolyn Busch Williams said the Halloween celebration over the past two years has worked best as a drive-thru event.
While the shift to a drive-thru event was initially due to the Covid pandemic, Williams said this year’s continued on that path because the celebration is able to remain fun for youth while cleaner and safer for the families.
The event was sponsored by CrossPoint Federal Credit Union which joined the Monday event to greet youth in costumes. The New Haven Police and Fire Departments also volunteered at the Monday event.
Williams said the department prepared 1,500 candy bags for youth while SCSU brought an additional 500. Nearly all the bags were distributed Monday with about two dozen left, which Busch said her team plans to donate to schools.
Hamden Hurricanes Football players.
Ricky Barrett heard about the Monday event while listening to WYBC-FM this week and decided to attend since it was happening just across the street from his house.
Barrett walked over to the event with his five-year-old daughter dressed as a rainbow unicorn.
Barrett said he enjoyed that the event was “regulated” and in the middle of his neighborhood.
“It’s good that you know what you’re getting it not and not walking into something unknown,” he said.
Youngest volunteer and granddaughter of Alder Tyisha Walker Myers, Taitum.
Ron Huggins with Kevin and Sapphire.
Mother, Sapphire, and son, Kevin, made their first stop Monday to Edgewood park to get some candy they could trust before going door knocking in East Haven, Sapphire said.
Due to safety concerns Sapphire said she only takes her son, who wore a matching skeleton costume, trick or treating for the experience, but after collecting the candy from going to neighbors’ doors she disposes of it.
“This is candy I can trust for him to eat. I don’t trust anything else unless I buy it,” Sapphire said.
One year olds Legend as Scooby Doo and Brielle as Mrs. Incredible, and two year old Davon as Flash.
“I got candy, mom,” eight-year-old Angel said to her mother Mercury as youth specialist Ron Huggins topped off her already full bag of candy with more treats.
The mother-daughter duo have a Halloween agreement that Mercury will eat the chocolate and Angel will eat the gummy candy they collect.
For the past two years Mercury has brought her daughter to the Youth and Rec celebration.
On Monday, Angel wore a prom queen costume finished with a sash and tutu.
“This is so much safer and more convenient,” Mercury said. “And they always make us feel so comfortable to just walk up.”
With so much candy collected, Angel told this reporter that she plans to make a candy basket for her teacher using some of her collected treats.
Click here, here, and here for other Independent and Arts Paper articles about local Halloween celebrations.
End of night candy box cleanup.
Well I guess I'm a curmudgeon but it makes me sad to see traditional trick-or-treating replaced by organized and programmed activities. There is something special for kids about walking around in groups in the dark, going up to neighbors homes, being greeted, and receiving treats directly from them. There's something special also about opening the door and greeting little (and big) kids in spooky getups and giving them candy.
We used to need 14 bags of candy at our house in Beaver Hills. Then it was down to 6 or 8; then (after freak weather events essentially canceled Halloween two years in a row) only 4 or 5. This year, figuring things would pick back up after the worst of covid-19, I bought 2 bags each of 2 kinds of candy. Our doorbell rang maybe 8 times all evening. We gave out both kinds of candy to every kid and it hardly made a dent in the bowl. Two of the bags are still unopened.
I realize another reason for the drop in trick-or-treating in our neighborhood is that our many Haredi Jewish neighbors don't celebrate this holiday. But this article also, obviously, provides the rest of the explanation.
I guess this is safer. It's certainly tamer. If the parents like it better, and the kids enjoy it, then, fine, I guess. And next year I'll buy only one bag of candy, for the few kids whose parents let them do things the old way.
But if so few kids go out at all, it will start to be genuinely creepy, walking the streets without the rest of their friends and neighbors ... and genuine trick-or-treating will become another thing of the past.