Making [social] Change: Trick-or-Treat

October 31st marked an important day at the Wessels' house: Trick-or-Treat night!

I've been pretty excited for this day for quite a while now. And it's not because of all the leftover candy--although that does play a small part, let's be honest--it's because of the sense of community and belonging that trick-or-treat night invokes.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I grew up in Urbana, Ohio, in the house where my mother grew up (click here to link to my dad's webpage for an image of that house). I lived there all my life before attending college, so I have a lot of fond memories of that house and surrounding neighborhood, especially at Halloween. For instance, here's a picture of me as a young pumpkin:

And see that big yellow bowl full of candy? That has been THE candy bowl at my parents' house for as long as I can remember. Years later when I was too old to trick-or-treat, I would join my mom on the porch steps to pass out candy from that bowl. It was so much fun to see the kids from the neighborhood dressed up as princesses and pirates and pumpkins, and enjoying the same neighborhood tradition that I had loved for so many years.

(Oh, and this trip down memory lane wouldn't be complete without this darling photo of a certain young blond Lego I happen to now be married to):

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, the sense of community that trick-or-treat night creates in a neighborhood. Ever since leaving Urbana in 2005, I've had a hard time defining what it means to be "home." I've lived in college dorms and crummy apartments for the past five years, many of them not big trick-or-treat zones for the kids from the community. I haven't known my neighbors and I haven't really felt a part of the place where I've lived. So ever since last February when Taylor and I decided to move out of apartment housing, I started picturing all of the things that I would love about living in a real house. I thought about having a garden, having a basement, having neighbors that care about each other. We chose our house because we liked the neighborhood, and we have enjoyed getting to know the people who live here. So you can imagine our excitement to finally a be part of the trick-or-treat tradition, or in other words, to be a part of the community.

Of course, there's no trick-or-treat fun without candy. And we were prepared. I was tempted to buy the cheap stuff in an attempt to be frugal, but Taylor said, "No! It's our first Halloween, and we're going to do this right." We picked out three big bags of candy including highly-coveted M&Ms, Twix, Nerds, and the like. Here's the bowl along with the vintage pumpkin on loan from Taylor's parents:

At 6:00 on the dot, the church bells chimed and the kids and parents started to emerge into the neighborhood, ready for a fun, candy-filled evening. Here are some neighbors we met last night who live up the street from us:

And here is Taylor, enjoying a random bowl of soup while we waited for our first trick-or-treaters:

Don't worry, I gobbled down my soup much earlier so that I would be ready:

However, I was only able to participate in the first hour of trick-or-treat at home before heading to work until midnight at House of Peace, where the fun continued with the residents and their kids, too. The shelter provided transportation into safe neighborhoods for the families to partake in area trick-or-treat festivities, and even provided costumes for the kids who didn't have one. Earlier in the weekend, the Children's Coordinator hosted a Halloween party complete with pumpkin-carving and goodie bags. It might not seem like a big deal, but Halloween was a great opportunity for the residents to re-build their sense of community in a safe environment. And that's pretty meaningful.

By 1 o'clock in the morning, I was home again, eager to hear the stories from the last hour of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Despite getting first dibs on the leftover candy, Taylor and our kitty Thelma were just too tuckered out to talk: