Dear Prudence: I organized my neighborhood’s first trunk-or-treat this year. I’m still in shock over what went wrong.

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Dear Prudence,

My husband “Mark” and I took our 5-year-old son, “Giacomo,” trick or treating for the first time last year (we opted not to prior to that because of COVID), but we realized pretty quickly that due to minimal streetlights, it didn’t feel super safe. Since there are still a lot of families on the street, this year, some other concerned neighbors and I decided to plan an afternoon trunk-or-treat for the weekend before Halloween. We advertised it throughout the neighborhood and on Next Door and were thrilled to get such a positive response from other families who wanted to join!

Unfortunately, I’m still processing how it actually turned out—all because of one family’s behavior.

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