Local day students found this years Halloween to be lackluster.
Halloween was on a Thursday this year, and local day students in Easthampton, Northampton and surrounding towns reported seeing a reduced number of trick or treaters this year in their local neighborhoods.
A reason for the lack of trick-or-treaters in local neighborhoods, some say, has been the fact that bigger and wealthier neighborhoods are now becoming hot zones, drawing kids away from their own neighborhoods.
Riley McDonald, from Northampton, lives in a popular neighborhood near Florence in a kid-friendly community.
“Kids from all over Northampton come to my neighborhood to Trick-Or-Treat,” he said. “I think it takes away from local neighborhoods and is why they don’t get as many people”
Shiv Patel, from Easthampton, also lives in a populated neighborhood.
“Cars were lined up and down my street,” he said. This happens every year as people drive from all around, and it gets very crowded, and I think this takes away from the neighborhoods right next to me.”
Shiv lives in a popular neighborhood called Kingsberry, located about a mile south of campus.
Nico Bonin, a junior from Easthampton, has gone to Shiv’s neighborhood to Trick-Or-Treat.
“When I was younger I would have my parents drive me into Kingsberry to trick-Or-treat,” he said. “I almost never went in my own neighborhood, which is probably why they don’t see many kids [there].”
Alex Landon, a junior, noticed trick-or-treating changes in his home town of Longmeadow, Mass.
“It seems that as years go on there is less spirit and less kids excited to dress up and get candy,” he said. “I feel like the tradition is dying, which is really sad considering I really enjoyed it as a child.”
Alex told The Willistonian he thinks “maybe safety takes away some aspects of it, as it can be scary for parents to have their kid participate,” he said.
David Miller, a child psychologist from the University of Albany, created a study on safety during Halloween, and found that the data proved that there was “Little evidence pointing to trick-or-treating being dangerous.”
“I think one of the things about [trick-or-treating] that we don’t sufficiently appreciate is a sense of trust we put in our neighbors when kids go out trick-or-treating,” he said. “And in most cases, that trust is well-placed.”
