Woodstock Early Bird The Early Bird Gets the Worm: earlybirdtips@gmail.com

Woodstock Village Trustees voted last night to sweeten Halloween this year with a contribution of  $500 from their contingency fund to buy candy for local kids. 

The decision was not without a 3-1 dissenting vote  from Trustee Chris Miller who said he loves Halloween and the neighborhood trick-or-treating  but questioned using taxpayer funds for the event. However, Trustee Eric Nesbitt, suggested that the $500 contribution was particularly necessary this year — not necessarily forever —  to maintain an upbeat event in a neighborhood that suffered losses from Tropical Storm Irene, where some living on those streets  might not feel  financially able to make a candy contribution (estimated at between $60 and $100 per household).

The Trustee Treats are  meant to be a sweetener for what are hoped to be plentiful community candy  donations put into  bins  meant  for the residents of High Street , Golf Avenue and Maple Streets to give out on Halloween night. The bins, with wonderful new artwork by Adrian Tans, are located at the Town Hall, Mac’s Grocery Store and at the Emergency Services Building (Police and Fire Station) at the East End of town.  The plan is to distribute  the candy  several days before Halloween so folks can figure out if they have enough or need to get more. And no raiding the candy bin, ‘kay folks? It’s for the kids!

Halloween will be held this year in the Village on Monday, October 31st with those streets closed  off — as usual —  for trick-or-treating from 5pm to 8pm.

This year there has been a concerted effort by neighbors, parents and Village officials to coordinate a more organized effort at candy distribution. There has even been an offer of “volunteers” who might “porch-sit” giving away candy to provide a uniform festive atmosphere even in front of  homes that might normally not participate.

At the Trustees meeting last night, Adrian Tans also informed everyone that the Purple Crayon/ArtisTree gallery  across from the Mt. Tom market will be having a pumpkin-carving event (details to come!). It’s hoped that some of the pumpkin carver-artists will leave their pumpkins so they might be used to line the Maple Street-Golf Avenue-High Street neighborhood. Speaking of which, the gallery is looking for pumpkin donations for the carving which will esssentially be pumpkins for Halloween in Woodstock donations.

We also have it on good authority that some of our Village officials  and able staff will be gracing the neighborhood  to offer “volunteer shifts” on the ghoulish Halloween eve. We’re not sure what Mr. Swanson or Ms. Riley will be wearing for costumes….but they’ll be out with everyone else including local police.

We’ll have more details for you about Halloween closer to the event, but it seems clear that it WILL  occur as usual in Woodstock, only this time with perhaps more thought, consideration and dedication to a fun evening than ever before. 

One more note..we are in receipt,  as they say,  of a small flier pasted to our  door asking for input about our intended participation in  Halloween by going to a website. We suspect the flier comes from the volunteer parent coordinators of the event on Maple Street but the flier does not identify who is collecting the info — meant to help assess who will “leave the light on for you” and who will not.

As Trustee Eric Nesbitt emphasized last night. If the light is not on, we need to respect the decision of those not participating.  “It’s okay,” he said.