The Crookston Police Department will host a Halloween Drive-By Food Drive on Tuesday, October 31, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
This is the 36th annual Halloween event the Crookston P.D. has hosted. These events have included spooky houses, games, and candy giveaways in previous years. During the last two Halloween events, the Police Department hosted a Halloween food drive, which was a smashing success. This year, they are trying to do the same thing.
President of the LEO Club and Student Council at CHS Linda Morgan and Chief of Police Darin Selzler have coordinated these Halloween events for the past eight years. “We’ve been coordinating these events for the last eight years, and I’ve been coordinating the Crookston Halloween party for the last 15 years,” said Selzler, “She came up to me in 2020 (at the peak of Covid-19), and she said ‘why don’t we do a drive-by event?’ and we can keep the party going, and keep activities within the community.”
The idea of the Drive-By event originated during the Covid-19 pandemic. This event allowed people to stay in their cars, donate canned goods, and keep the “trick or treat” spirit alive with children receiving candy.
“After doing it for a few years, we realized we’ve had just as much success, as far as handing out the same quantity of candy from the people that come through,” said Selzler, “We have people come through, and we can track bag counts and how many people come through. We give out several hundred bags of candy like when hosting the Halloween parties.”
Each Trick or Treater that attends will receive a Halloween bag that contains various types of candy, as well as age-appropriate safety materials and other utensils. These materials include pencils, pens, bracelets, erasers, safety literature regarding bus safety, and stranger danger literature.
The event is FREE to attend, with food donations encouraged. All food donations (preferably canned goods) will be given to the Care and Share Food Shelf. CHS LEO Club members and Crookston Police Officers will be on the curb to pick up your donations.
If you cannot drive by, you can call Linda Morgan at 281-2144 or Darin Selzler at 281-3111, and they will pick up donations at your doorstep. The LEO Club members will also be out in the community, collecting canned goods and wearing their ‘LEO’ buttons throughout the night.
Selzler believes this event has been great for the community and has seen many benefits. Last year, this event reportedly received approximately 1,500 pounds worth of donated goods. “We’ll have some rubber-made tubs in the back of a few vehicles parked in the parking lot,” said Selzler, “We fill those up when they get full, we make a couple of trips to the Care and Share that night. This is a really good event for our Trick or Treaters in our community, and it’s a great opportunity to give back to the community through the food drive.”
