BY SYDNEY HOOVER
Kelli Fisher said since the pandemic started, her family hasn’t celebrated most holidays the way they normally would — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Fourth of July were all spent social distancing this year.
As Halloween approaches, though, Fisher said she wanted her 2-year-old to be able to celebrate like normal in a safe fashion.
“I had seen quite a few people on the community [Facebook] pages asking if Halloween was canceled or asking if they knew where to go trick-or-treating since everything's been canceled,” Fisher said.
That’s where Fisher came up with the idea for a trick-or-treating map. She created the map through Google Maps and put it in the community Facebook groups for families who wanted to participate to add their addresses to it.
Fisher said she was only expecting a few responses, but the community support has been much bigger than she expected. As of Monday, there were more than 100 houses and businesses pinned that are participating in trick-or-treating.
“I've gotten private messages saying, you know, how useful it is and just lots of really great positive responses from the community,” Fisher said.
The CDC released information listing traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating, as well as trunk-or-treat events and costume parties, as high-risk for spread of the coronavirus. It recommended having a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt within families as a low-risk activity or grab-and-go candy as moderate-risk.
Fisher said to make the night as safe as possible, families in Eudora are getting innovative with their trick-or-treating strategies, such as candy slides made out of PVC pipes and lollipops stuck in yards. The Google map has color-coded pins for each house, orange for traditional trick-or-treating and purple for socially distanced trick-or-treating.
Michelle Ray and her husband are building a zipline to send candy down their driveway to trick-or-treaters, an idea she found on Pinterest. They’re attaching a fishing line to pull it back up the hill to their front porch to maintain social distancing the whole night.
“I think people are trying very hard to do the right thing socially to ensure that everybody's safe, but to still give your kids something to not let it go away,” Ray said.
She also plans to disinfect the candy she will hand out, put each piece in separate bags and use gloves when handling it the night of Halloween.
Holly Dudley said she wants to set up a cemetery in her yard, with a skeleton in the middle holding all the candy for children to grab without coming to the door.
She said although she doesn’t have young children who will participate in trick-or-treating, it was always a fun tradition with her 15-year-old son when he was younger.
“I definitely think that, you know, getting to do things that we've always done in the past and getting to have that experience to get to go out to trick or treat, it brings back some of the normalcy,” Dudley said.
For Casey Flory, making sure every child in the community had a costume to wear on Halloween was her priority. Flory said when she would watch her niece walk in Eudora Elementary’s Halloween walk each year, she noticed many children who did not have costumes.
She decided this year, she would start collecting costumes to give to families in need.
“Even if we don't end up having Halloween, kids like to dress up,” Flory said. “Regardless, it gives them something to do at home and broadens their imagination.”
Flory said she purchased 60 costumes for children in Eudora. She said she still has several costumes left to give to those in need in the community. To maintain social distancing, she sends photos of costumes to families who express interest that they can choose from and schedules a time for them to pick them up from her front porch.
“There's so many people in Eudora that would probably be willing to even make this bigger,” she said. “I just started out with 60 costumes to see how it would go. And so far, it's going great. So next year, I'll probably get even more.”
Anyone interested in adding their home to the Halloween map can message Kelli Fisher on Facebook. Those in need of a costume can message Casey Flory.
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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