RICHLAND, Wash. – Washington State University Tri-Cities held their second annual Trunk-or-Treat on Halloween with plenty of parents bringing their kids to get buckets full of candy.
WSU Tri-Cities Student Entertainment Board Member Evelyn Martinez tells me that the event began on campus during the pandemic with people passing out candy until 7:30 p.m. with a Halloween drive-in movie at 8 p.m.
“A lot of our students have kids and wanted to bring their friends and families along with them. If they live at home with their parents they would bring them along,” says Martinez. “So, it was a good opportunity for the community to come participate on campus.”
A big reason Sean Sanders, a local parent in Richland, says he takes his kids to Trunk-or-Treats is safety.
Sanders says, “I’ve done trunk-or-treats in the past. Not with my son yet, but I’ve always found them to be safe and very trustworthy people. A lot of people nowadays don’t even open up their doors or do the traditional trick-or-treating that I’m kinda use to when I was growing up.”
Sanders says trunk-or-treats seem to be the easiest way to go as his son gets older.
Sanders says, “I mean he’s only three-years-old so I wouldn’t let him go out by himself, but even if he was ten I don’t know if I’d let him go out by himself.”
Martinez says these events provide a level of safety by bringing the community together on campus instead of walking through neighborhoods.
Martinez says, “I think trunk-or-treats are a little bit more accessible for people to just come and park in one place and have access to a lot of different themes, different groups that are doing different stuff. There’s different candy all on one street as opposed to having to walk block to block.”
WSU Tri-Cities plans to continue their annual trunk-or-treat on Halloween each year followed by a Halloween drive-in movie.
