Community works to provide fun Halloween experience

Over the past year, COVID-19 has greatly impacted and changed many traditions, and Halloween is no exception. But while the holiday and season may be different this year, residents from around the county have worked to provide fun, spooky experiences despite the challenges caused by the pandemic.

As many families prepare to trick-or-treat this year, the Tompkins County Health Department issued guidance to residents on trick-or-treating safely, along with tips for other, lower-risk activities families can do. Trick-or-treating is considered a moderate-risk activity, so the recommendations are meant to decrease the health risk as much as possible and protect all those involved.

“Our community has been great throughout this whole COVID experience with following the guidance that we’ve asked them to follow, and this is just another phase in that,” said Public Health Director Frank Kruppa. “We put the guidance out early so, hopefully, it would help people plan a bit for how they plan to enjoy Halloween. And I am confident that our community will take it seriously and take the steps necessary to help us not spread COVID unnecessarily.”

The guidelines (full list available at https://bit.ly/2SvQS7U) include tips for neighbors and trick-or-treaters. For neighbors, the biggest takeaway is to avoid the traditional large bowl of candy that all kids reach into by preparing individually wrapped treat bags, which should be set outside as close to the edge of the property as possible and prepared using clean hands and a face mask.

For trick-or-treaters, Kruppa said, it’s all the basics the Health Department has been pushing over the past several months — socially distance, group only with members of your household, wear a cloth mask and keep your hands sanitized. In addition, don’t wear secondhand costumes without washing them first, and avoid congestion at houses.

“It’s not going to be the same as it’s been in the past,” Kruppa said. “Think about what you’re planning to do, where you’re going, who’s going to be there, what the risks are, and then think about the guidance and apply that appropriately. And I think folks, if they were able to do that, can still have fun and do it safely.”

Others in the community have also worked to provide alternative experiences for families and other residents, with everything from tours to drive-in movies. Lansing resident Loveta Geesey, for example, has worked with others in town to modify a relatively new and much-loved annual tradition — the Lansing Community Trunk or Treat.

The first Trunk or Treat was held in 2017, and every year since, the format and location have had to change to accommodate the growing interest, Geesey said. As such, the event has always been flexible, which helped organizers adapt it to include COVID-19 safety precautions.

“We want it to be fun, we want it to be safe, and we want it to be community, and that’s our goal,” Geesey said. “We are providing an opportunity so that those that want to can come, have some fun on Halloween and be with their community.”

With help from Lansing Parks and Recreation, Asbury Church attendees and others, a new location was chosen — Myers Park, which allows for significantly more space than past years. The additional space helps cars to spread out and helps families stay socially distant throughout the whole experience. Organizers also established a registration system to prevent crowds.

More information on the trunk or treat can be found at facebook.com/lansingcommunitytrunkortreat.

Geesey isn’t the only one modifying tradition to fit the circumstances. Annual tours by Historic Ithaca and the History Center, for example, have been held throughout the month thanks to logistical tweaking.

Historic Ithaca has held tours at the Ithaca City Cemetery for many years now, and they’ve always been popular with residents, said Executive Director Susan Holland.

The first tour of the season was held Oct. 24, and while there are still two tours planned for Halloween, they’re already fully booked. This is mostly because Historic Ithaca had to significantly reduce the number of people who could attend each tour, leading slots to fill up quickly.
Holland described some of the other precautions she and her staff are taking.

“You can manage your crowd by registration — people show up, you turn them away, that kind of thing,” she said. “You don’t want to, but you have to. And we’re extremely strict on mask-wearing. We bring our sanitizers. We bring extra masks. … It’s a downer a bit, but we can still provide information.”

Visit historicithaca.org/cemetery-tours-2019 for additional information.

Like Historic Ithaca, the History Center’s annual Haunted History Tours also had to be modified to be held during the pandemic.

The tours, which started Oct. 16 and end Oct. 30, rely heavily on volunteers to go smoothly, said Zoë Van Nostrand, marketing and visitor experience coordinator. Because of this, as Van Nostrand explained, when most of the center’s volunteer pool felt uncomfortable helping events, it looked like the tours would have to be canceled.

“It was our Heritage Ambassador Sherri La Torre who reached out to us and said, ‘I really want to do the tours. I think we could do them in a safe way,’” Van Nostrand said. “And we were really excited to hear from her and really excited that she loved doing them enough that she wanted to do them again and brought it back.”

Holding the tours meant revising the formatting significantly to provide a more safe and controlled experience for attendees. To that end, tour capacity was greatly reduced, often by 50% or more, and attendees had to sign health declaration forms and provide contact tracing information. Find additional details at thehistorycenter.net/event-4011485.

While some have modified tradition, others have created new events for the community to enjoy. At Tompkins Cortland Community College, for example, the Cortland Voice sponsored a weekend of drive-in movies in the college parking lots Oct. 24 and 25.

Tim Bennett, owner of the Cortland Voice and organizer of the Spooky Drive-In, said he wanted to provide a fun opportunity for students and other community members that allowed for social distancing.

“This is just for the community, and with what’s going on now in the community with people spreading the coronavirus and everyone needs to be safe and social distance, [TC3’s] campus is perfect for this,” Bennett said.

Another new event is happening this weekend in Trumansburg, Tburg’s Drive Thru Hunt and Treat. Organized by the Trumansburg Area Chamber of Commerce, Little Venice and FanUnity, Inc., the event was created to provide Trumansburg Central School District children a chance to enjoy the holiday through a contact-free experience.

“Halloween has always been really important because it’s one of those times that there’s this unspoken contract between the community,” said Darlynne Overbaugh, founding member of FanUnity, Inc. “It’s like, ‘OK, we’re going to do this thing that is relatively minor that has a huge impact on our kids and our families.’ And it seems like a really simple thing, but in life, the simple things become really appreciated. And it’s important to me to keep that sense of community alive.”

The event is free, but donations are encouraged, as the proceeds support the Trumansburg Fairgrounds, the Trumansburg Area Chamber of Commerce and FanUnity, inc. To pre-register or to learn more, visit facebook.com/tburghalloween.

Unfortunately, some traditional activities couldn’t be adapted to the pandemic and instead had to be canceled altogether, including the many festivities and a parade that are held in downtown Ithaca.

One of the largest annual downtown events was Halloween in Downtown Ithaca, organized by the Downtown Ithaca Alliance (DIA). DIA Special Events Director Scott Rougeau explained that the event was canceled to keep the community safe, even though he and many others are saddened by the loss.

“The safety of our community comes first,” Rougeau said. “Without being able to guarantee the safety of participants and their families, and due to large turnouts in years past, we decided to forego this year’s event. We look forward to Halloween in Downtown Ithaca returning next year in some capacity.”

Another loss was Greater Ithaca Activities Center’s (GIAC) annual Halloween parade, which is typically held during Halloween in Downtown Ithaca. GIAC Deputy Director Travis Brooks said it was a difficult decision to cancel the parade but a necessary one.

“To offer a parade with proper social distancing is almost impossible,” he said. “We do not want to be the center of an outbreak nor contribute to the heightened fears the community, staff and families are already feeling.”

For families still unsure of how to spend the season, sources offered some suggestions to enjoy Halloween while staying safe. Geesey, for example, said that as challenging as the pandemic makes things, it also presents families with the chance to explore options they hadn’t previously.

“I’m a big tradition person, but sometimes, we have times in our history, times in our lives, when we go, ‘Hey, we have an opportunity to do something new,’” she said. “And I think for ourselves, and for our kids, the biggest thing that I have seen is we have an amazing opportunity to do things new that we may have never had an opportunity to do before.”

Overbaugh expressed a similar sentiment.

“Halloween isn’t canceled; It’s just different,” she said. “So, let’s take advantage of that difference and make it even more fun.”