Tomorrow night you’ll be hearing “Trick-or-treat” from little, costumed children knocking on your door. They aren’t prepared to carry out the trick part of their threat–just carrying a bag to hold the candy they expect you to hand them. Kids used to soap windows or string toilet paper in trees as Halloween pranks. In the Durand area, some ‘big kids’ hauled outhouses to public places. I haven’t seen any evidence of mischief for quite a few years.
According to what I’m seeing in the news, many towns held a trunk-or-treat program in their downtown area during a daylight time to give the kids an added time to gather candy.
I’ve read on social media that school teachers have a tough time in the classroom on November 1 coping with students who are hyped up from eating large amounts of sugar.
When our three kids were trick-or-treating fifty years ago, children were urged to trick-or-treat for UNICEF and give up their candy bars in favor of cash dropped into the little orange boxes they held.
In our village, the powers-that-be didn’t want to deprive the witches and goblins of their treats; it just asked neighbors to donate twice. On Sunday night, the costumed kids would be asking for contributions to UNICEF but whatever night of the week was Halloween, the small monsters would be back knocking on the doors requesting their goodies.
In thinking about Halloween, I wondered if there was still a UNICEF–I hadn’t heard about it for years. I’m not advocating for it–I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity.
I found it still in existence on the internet. The letters stand for the original name of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency fund, which has been shortened to the United Nations Children’s Fund. It was created in 1946 as a response to the needs of children affected by World War II and became a permanent United Nations agency in 1953. It is a critical, flexible funding that can be used for programs that provide essentials such as education, safe water and vaccinations when and where they need it most.
Have you ever had trick-or-treaters for UNICEF?