D300 Food Pantry is putting a new spin on trick-or-treating. It’s called trick-or-can, a Halloween-themed food drive.
It’s a popular tradition in Stanze Smith’s hometown of White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Smith’s been volunteering at the food pantry for four years. She mentioned the idea to her fellow volunteers.
“No one ever heard of it,” Smith said.
The way it works is instead of asking people for candy, trick-or-treaters ask for donations to the D300 Food Pantry.
Trick-or-can is geared toward middle school and high school-aged teens, although younger children and their parents can participate, Smith said.
It gives kids who have been told, “you are too old to trick-or-treat,” a chance to enjoy a childhood tradition, Smith said. “It’s giving them something to do, a way to dress up and participate that isn’t just about collecting candy.”
Although, “I did get plenty of candy when I did it,” Smith said.
It also serves as a convenient way for people to donate without having to drop off items, Smith said. The food pantry will be open on Halloween for any drop-off donations.
The pantry has themed collections it does around Thanksgiving and Christmas. “We’ve never done anything around Halloween,” said Smith, a food industry professional.
D300 Food Pantry started in August 2016 and serves families within the school district. It has locations at Carpentersville Middle School, 100 Cleveland Avenue (Entrance 20), and Jacobs High School, 2601 Bunker Hill Drive, Algonquin. It uses a concept where guests are grocery shopping, which allows families to choose items they will use rather than get a box with items that may not be eaten, Smith said.
“It’s like a grocery shopping experience,” Smith said. Families can pick the brand they want or items their children like, she said. “It gives them the option to say no to things. If your family doesn’t like canned soup, you don’t have to take canned soup.”
Donations come from the community along with partners like grocery stores, which donate food that otherwise would be thrown away, Smith said. “It keeps so much food from the landfill,” she said.
Feeding America, one of the largest hunger relief organizations in the country, reported that about 14 million children, or 1 in 5 living in the U.S., experienced food insecurity in 2024, the latest year data is available.
Locally, 11.1% of Kane County residents experience food insecurity, according to Northern Illinois Food Bank.
“We serve anywhere from 150 to 200 families each week,” Smith said. The number has gone up in the last two years as food assistance programs, like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP), have been cut, she said. “We’ve had to manage our resources differently this year,” she said.
When SNAP and a special supplement nutrition program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) were cut the month before, the food pantry saw an influx of guests, Smith said. Volunteers added more appointments for families, Smith said.
It also had to take some other actions.
“We had to decrease the number of items they could take. We sourced more (items) from our partners. We decided to put out more programs like trick-or-can and try to restock things. We took things out of our long-term storage,” Smith said.
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Since it’s the first year for trick-or-can, Smith has been working to put out information on social media about the non-traditional food drive. Spreading the word has been difficult because the food pantry doesn’t have funds to advertise. It’s all social media and word of mouth, she said.
Smith hopes trick-or-can will catch on over time to become a Halloween tradition.
“Next year it will, hopefully, be bigger and better,” Smith said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.