Candy, Costumes and Community: A Look Back at Our Trunk or Treat

2 hours ago

3 min read

Last Friday, October 30, the parking lot at 5080 Aultman Road turned into the best kind of chaos. Trunks were decorated, candy buckets came out, and kids costumed in everything from superheroes to dinosaurs made their way from car to car.

The Trunk or Treat was an Ohio Center for Hope event, hosted on the same campus we share with Neuro-Behavioral Clinical Research. And honestly, it was one of our favorite afternoons of the year.

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Ohio Center for Hope was founded by Dr. Shishuka Malhotra, a board-certified psychiatrist who has spent more than two decades caring for people in Stark County. She started the Center around a simple idea: quality psychiatric care should not depend on whether you can pay for it.

Today the Center provides psychiatric care, medication management, respite services, crisis stabilization and community referrals for people living with mental illness, addiction or memory loss. Every service is free, and insurance is never required.

But care only works if people know you're there and feel comfortable walking through the door. That's where events like this come in. A Trunk or Treat isn't a clinical program. It's a chance for families to meet us in a parking lot full of candy instead of a waiting room, and to see that the people behind mental health care are their neighbors.

The people who made it happen

We had a lot of help, and we want to thank each of these partners by name.

Canton for All People. Canton for All People is a community development corporation started by Crossroads United Methodist Church, working with the Lemmon and DeHoff family foundations. Their mission is to improve the quality of life for the residents of downtown Canton, and they do it block by block. Their work includes affordable and income-aligned housing, homeowner repairs and home counseling, the Shorb Fresh Market, Gibbs Kitchen and a Neighborhood Leadership Academy. They've mobilized more than $32 million in investment and delivered over 100 units of housing in Canton. We're grateful they showed up for our families too.

Torrence Mabry of Art Daddy. If you saw a kid walk away with a spiderweb across their cheek or a full tiger face, that was Torrence. He's the Canton artist behind Art Daddy, which offers art lessons, paint kits, custom pieces and murals. His face painting line was never empty, and the work was incredible. If you need an artist for your next event, look him up.

Talon from the H.O.P.E. Coalition. H.O.P.E. stands for Health Overdose Prevention Education. The coalition is a faith-based effort in Canton, led by Rev. Michael A. Pressley Sr. of Mount Zion Church of God in Christ, working with Canton City Public Health to raise overdose awareness and connect people to treatment, especially in Stark County's Black community. Their work includes free naloxone (Narcan) distribution and harm-reduction outreach. Thank you, Talon, for joining us. Prevention and mental health care belong in the same conversation, and we're glad to share the lot with you.

Our own team. A huge thank you to the Ohio Center for Hope and NBCR staff who decorated trunks, handed out candy and stayed late to clean up.

See you next year

We're already thinking about how to make next year bigger. If you're a local organization that wants to host a trunk, or a family that wants to know when the date is set, follow Ohio Center for Hope on Facebook and Instagram.

And if you or someone you love is struggling, you don't have to wait for the next event to reach us. Ohio Center for Hope offers free mental health and memory care, with no insurance needed. Call 330.493.1118 or visit https://www.ohiocenterforhope.org to learn more.