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Posted: 09 August 2007 at 8:27am | IP Logged

We are hosting our first Trunk or Treat this year. Can anyone give me some advice on "dos" and "donts". We are looking to focus less on the decor and more on a car show aspect by inviting classic car owners. I am trying to figure out what to expect since we will be promoting it heavily.

Posted: 09 August 2007 at 9:08am | IP Logged

For Trunk n treat - what we did, was come up with a theme.. sports night, "Where is your treasure", "favorite bible story.   Then the s decorate there trunk.  We even made a contest out of this, most creative, best decorated. etc.   then we park the cars in a circle (somewhat) then the kids go trunk to trunk.  We found in our area it was hard to get classic cars to come in, so we went with decorating of the trunk comcept.

Hope this helps.

Posted: 13 August 2007 at 2:55pm | IP Logged

We have been doing Trunk or Treat for about 7 years and it is one of our funnest events for kids and volunteers.

We put out flyers with information about the event and include a statement - no violent, scary or evil costumes.

We have guys dressed up as keystone cops to direct and organize our parking lot so that kids can go down one lane and then another and encourage them to come back inside once they are done and we have food , hot chocolate, hot sider, cookies etc inside.

We have a registration table inside and then a table for judging the different age groups for best costumes.

Then they go outside for the trunks. Our first trunk is our Church van and our Senior Pastor and his wife are always there. They pass out gifts that we provide along with information about children's ministry.

Then they move on to the other cars. We have encouraged ministries to set up cars to help promote there ministry and just to have fun. In the past we have had pizza shops and fire trucks.

We ask that each car provide candy enough for 250 kids, and we will take care of the rest. If they cannot we will help them out. We have runners who are bringing out candy all throughout the night.

We have over the last few years had it after halloween and always on a Friday night. This a good night for parents and people who decorate cars and it is great for buying candy, you can get it half price after halloween. I clean walmart out.

We have asked parents to pre sign up and to donate a bag of candy, we get some and it is helpful, but we do not make it mandatory.

In side we do a rally for about 45 min with music, videos and a very short message focusing on Salvation and trusting Jesus. I do not give an invitation but encourage them to talk with myself or other leaders of the church. I find this is a soft outreach in that I do not hardsell the gospel, it is an opportunity to touch families who do not come to church.

We end the night with the prizes for the best costumes in each age group boy and girl and we give prizes for the top three trunks.

I love this event , it is a lot of work but the kids and parents love it and they come away very happy and exctited and hopefully seeing how great God is.

P Dave

Posted: 15 August 2007 at 10:39am | IP Logged

[QUOTE]Food - we bring in Carl's Jr. just so we don't half to deal with it, and it is a name brand we can put on PR that people know [/QUOTE]

What does Carl's Jr provide and what do you do to get them at your event? We do not have that chain here, but we do have some chains that work this way. We usually partner with Outback Steakhouse for our Summer Family event, but I would like to partner with someone else for our Festival. 

Posted: 22 August 2007 at 3:17pm | IP Logged

We've done Trunk or Treat in the past in combination w/ Light in the Night.  It's a great way to make a whole family event w/out having to rethink a theme every yr.

Jonathan

Posted: 31 August 2007 at 1:00pm | IP Logged

Trunk or treat is basically trick or treating from car trunks.

My concern in doing it at strip malls is you have no control over who is there giving out candy.  Since we live in the area where the "candy man" was years ago (for those who do not know, he put poisin in pixie sticks) we tend to be very careful.

I can see why classic car owners would not be interested in decorating their trunks. Too much $ spent on the car to mess it up. LOL.

That said - we did a festival last year on Halloween. We wanted to be able to offer more than just candy, so we had all games tied to a Bible story/character. Also did the Pumpkin Patch parable. We had a pumpkin decorating contest where each person or family could bring a pumpkin decorated as a Bible character or story. This is always a highlight for us. Everyone loves it.

The feedback we got was "thank you for doing this on Halloween. Most churches did their stuff last weekend, and we need a place to take our kids tonight." Something to think about.

Most fast food places have catering. Chick fil a, McDonalds, etc.  We just do not have the budget to have them feed a thousand people. We did corn dogs, nachos, and cookies last year and it was well received. We ordered our corn dogs from Angel Food Ministries.

Posted: 31 August 2007 at 1:58pm | IP Logged

We did trunk or treat for a few years and found it to be successful. Decorating the trunks is fun and people can really get creative. make sure you space out the cars where they are not too close together. IF YOU HAVE A BUS... REALLY DECK IT OUT WITH LIGHTS AND RUN A BIBLE THEME THROUGH IT. HAVE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS SITTING ON THE BUS FROM THE FRONT TO THE BACK AND AS THEY HAND OUT CANDY THEY GIVE THEIR NAME AND WHEN THEY LIVED IN HISTORY. KIDS EXIT DOWN SOME STEPS FROM THE BACK OF THE BUS.

Last year we did Hero's Unmasked and had over 3000 people walk though the grounds! WOW! This year's theme is WILD WEST FEST. Carnival type atmosphere with magic shows, puppet shows, games, food, horse rides and lots of candy.

Posted: 02 September 2007 at 6:05pm | IP Logged

So how much time does this take in advance?  How soon do you start making this happen?

Posted: 18 September 2007 at 9:28am | IP Logged

We've found Trunk or Treat to be the best way to provide something safe for the kids and be able to interact at the same time. 

We do ours at a school.  The district allows us to send flyers through the school which is a plus.

Decorating the trunks for the kids is the main attraction.  Rain or shine, snow or sunny - it doesn't matter.  They come by the hundreds. 

We serve free donuts, coffee and hot chocolate.

We use cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles.  It's all fun. 

No strings attatched is our motto.  We're just there to have something safe for our kids.  We hand out a brochure with our church information.

This year we've invited two smaller churches in the area to join us.

Trunk or Treat is a lot less work and more time to visit with the kids and their parents.

Posted: 02 October 2007 at 5:11pm | IP Logged

Our people got creative and had a blast!  This year we are using this night as an thank you outreach before we move to our new location.

This was such a fun night for all of our church people, old and young alike.  This was all I could upload in this post.  Our people need your ideas.  Please get creative and send.

That's all Ya'll!  Now send your ideas!

Posted: 03 October 2007 at 8:15am | IP Logged

I am in IL and we are doing Trunk or Treat.  We are going to do ours on October 31st night.  When I arrived at this church, they had rain dates for our Easter Egg Hunt.  I was very clear that I thought having a rain date would work against our effort to draw a crowd.  In fact, I believe I was right.  The morning of our EEH it was VERY cold, I think the high was in the 20's-30's but below 32.  Thankfully, last yr we had no snow but just COLLLLD wind.  We had the largest attendance in history for hunt!  Obviously, the Lord went before us but I believe there were several factors of the reason for the larger attendance.  I say all of that to say, I would not set a rain date.  Just my opionion, but it's something you have to think out.  As well, w/ this event you could move it indoors if necessary and just have the people bring their stuff inside to give out...You lose the trunk aspect...

Posted: 03 October 2007 at 10:51am | IP Logged

We are trying something new this year.... We are going to do.... door to door in the church --- have volunteers come and deocrate a door in the church...we are doing to have a contest.  The kids will go from door to door....We are going to start around 5:30 pm and sell hot dogs and chips....were doing this with whole church....

This is what i'm lacking......A name... for the night ..(trunk n treat )HELP! 

Were going to have everyone come together and more than likely

do a story together...and start the door to door..

Posted: 03 October 2007 at 12:21pm | IP Logged

[QUOTE=gtagkids]Are most of you in warm states? I wonder about having a trunk or treat in Iowa where it could be snowing and/or very cold. Anybody plan for bad weather? Do you do a rain date? Just wondering.[/QUOTE

I couldn't make this work in cold Erie, PA/