Pandemic candy hunt no longer a pipe dream
Plumber selling chutes for Halloween to raise money for food bank
What do you do when the longstanding trick-or-treating Halloween tradition is possibly in jeopardy amid the COVID-19 pandemic?
If you are plumber Geoff Burke, you put your building skills to use by making and installing candy chutes outside people’s homes.
“Kids are definitely having a tough year with school cancellations, not being able to see their friends and all that, so I thought, why not provide a little bit of life for these kids who have missed out on so much already this year,” said Burke, a resident in Toronto’s west end and owner of Watermark Plumbing Services Inc.
“Along with what the experts are saying, this is one of the safer holidays that we can celebrate safely outside.”
Canada’s top public health official Dr. Theresa Tam told reporters on Tuesday that Halloween need not be cancelled altogether. According to Tam, public health leaders believe it’s possible to strike the “right balance” between risk and fun if outdoors.
Tam urged community members to observe existing safety measures — such as masking up, using hand sanitizer and observing physical distancing — while out on the candy hunt.
Toronto, Ottawa and Peel region are Ontario’s hot zones, but Ontario’s medical health officer Dr. David Williams said, as of Tuesday, recommendations for Halloween in those spots haven’t yet been finalized.
Meanwhile, Burke, 32, has come up with a creative solution to pandemic trick-ortreating: distributing candy through makeshift chutes installed in front of people’s homes.
The idea came to him a few weeks ago when he read a story about a man in Ohio who created a candy chute as a means to distribute candy to kids during Halloween while safely observing physical-distancing guidelines. Burke’s own two-year-old daughter is at an age when she’s starting to enjoy the outside activities and it would be hard to explain to her why trick-ortreating is not happening, he said.
When he put out a call over the Thanksgiving weekend, the community response was swift and overwhelming. He had to stop the requests after getting 400 of them.
“It was quickly getting out of hand,” he said about people’s interest.
The chutes are made from drainage pipes, which have been donated by Burke’s supplier, NEXT Plumbing & Hydronics. The pipes are then painted orange and decorated just to give them an extra festive look. The plan is to use volunteers from Daily Bread Food Bank to help put them up, starting next week.
Burke only asks that for each chute installed, a minimum $25 donation be made to help the food bank. Earlier in April, he used his plumbing services to raise over $4,500 for the same initiative, after realizing COVID-19 was leaving many people out of food options.
“To me, it’s just a way to help people get out there, stay socially distanced and have a little bit of fun. It’s been a difficult time for everybody for too long,” he said.
Burke is not the only person to think outside the box while trying to find a way to celebrate this upcoming Halloween.
On his front porch in Brooklin, north of Whitby, Scott Bennett has installed a candy slide through which he’s planning to drop candy straight into the bags of trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
He has shared a video link on how to build one such slide on his YouTube channel where he usually posts various projects of his craft in woodworking. With “as few tools as possible,” he hopes people will quickly learn to do it and safely take part in Halloween.
“I think our kids are going through enough change right now, and adults are potentially stressed about things,” he said, noting Halloween is a magical time of the year and at this stage of the pandemic it’s really important that people get a chance to see some change in their routine.
“I don’t want to be in my house with the lights off. I want to be out on the porch talking to my neighbours, celebrating with everyone.”