Donate Your Halloween Candy to US Troops

Treats 4 Our Troops is a grassroots organization, which was founded by Yael Roggen in 2007 to collect and distribute surplus Halloween candy to our nation’s deployed troops.  In 2009 T4OT went Trick-or-Treating 4 our troops and the bounty collected tipped the scales at nearly 3000 pounds.  Some of the area drop-off locations include:


1353 South Carolina Avenue, SE, DC
2939 Newark Street, NW, DC
3507 Morrison Street, NW, DC
2914 33rd Place, NW, DC
5635 7th Street North, Arlington, VA
122 N 36th Street, Arlington, VA
Jhoon Rhee Arlington, 1120 West Broad Street, Arlington, VA
3323 McMahon Road, Silver Spring, MD
7101 Loch Lomond Drive, Bethesda, MD
Signature Settlements, 188 Thomas Johnson Drive, Frederick, MD

There are more listings for places where you can drop off your candy through November 6 on the Treats 4 Our Troops's Facebook page and on MoverMoms' website.

Still Life With Robin: Whoooo Loves Halloween?

by Peggy Robin

I would say that Halloween is my favorite holiday -- and believe I mean it -- except for the vague memory I have of myself last summer declaring that the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, and last spring telling the guests around the Seder table that Passover is the best. At least let me stake the claim that it's my favorite October holiday. (I can't even swear that it's the best fall holiday, because I may want to make the case for Thanksgiving later in the season.) But just take me at my word: I really love Halloween.

Now for the reasons:  Number one, guilt-free candy. Normally, I try to limit my intake. I have my dentist to nag me on this score, and my own negative reinforcement that comes from owning a mouthful of fillings, the result of a childhood that included a daily walk home from school past a candy store, always with a stopover to make a purchase and consume it before I reached my front door. Eventually I learned from all my experiences of the drill to give up my daily sugar fix. Except for this one day a year when I hand out Kitkats and Almond Joys to trick-or-treaters and make sure to save a precious few for myself. (This year any leftovers once I've had my fill are going to neighbors Judy and Gary Kopff, who are collecting for our active duty forces abroad, and invite you to drop off goodies at their front porch at  2939 Newark Street, NW.)

Siren Call for a Vegan Halloween in DC

...In Takoma Park. Where else?  Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a Vegan Halloween.

Here's the plea from the Takoma Park listserv:

Compassion Over Killing would like to help make it easy for trick-or-treaters in the DC-area to get their fair share of cruelty-free treats this Halloween, so we're putting together a map of local houses that are handing out vegan candy-and we need your help!

The vegan Halloween map is here,and you can read more about VeganDC here.

I read this message about vegan Halloween candy on the Takoma Park DC listserv before having my morning coffee, so I wasn't entirely sure, in my pre-caffeinated state, what vegan Halloween candy is. But apparently, it wasn't the lack of caffeine that caused me to have to reread that message several times. Somebody else on the listserv asked:

I'm totally at a loss. What is vegan candy? I think this is a bit much. What's being killed by candy? Our teeth from the sugar maybe. I know that sounds flippant, but I truly don't understand.

And the answer, because we simply have to know:

Since you asked, vegan candy is candy free of animal ingredients like gellatin (which is cow cartillage) and milk. (I once thought no-one got killed or suffered for milk, but found how naive I was when I started researching and visiting modern farms). Not to mention yuchy things like acetyl palmitate (it's a waxy oil made from sperm whale and dolphin's heads).

There's a tradition (if you can call it that) of giving out healthy snacks for Halloween: things like carrots, raisins, and Cheerios. I don't know. Pity all the disappointed parents who want to steal their kids' Halloween booty, only to grab a granola bar.