Goats and Soda : NPR

Every year Halloween causes a sale $3.9 billion in candy in the United States. But that's not the only impressive statistic associated with trick-or-treating.

A few years after World War II, a couple from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had an idea – what if the children also asked for coins to donate to UNICEF, the UN agency that protects the rights of children around the world. This year marks the 75th anniversary of this initiative called Trick or treat for UNICEF. During this time, about 200 million dollars were collected.

This year's ad campaign features supermodels. Heidi Klum, one of the respected supporters of celebrities past and present such as Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya, Sammy Davis Jr., Maya Angelou, Bob McGrath and even Lassie.

“We want to raise awareness about the importance of protecting children – making sure they are healthy and fed,” says Shelley Diamond, a spokeswoman for the organization. UNICEF USA.

But in 2025, not only the anniversary is important. At that time drastic and drastic reduction in federal foreign aidsome say this simple practice is more important than ever.

“We have absolutely sufficient resources to make sure that [children's] rights are respected,” says Charles Kennysenior fellow at the Center for Global Development think tank in Washington, D.C.: “But frankly, governments around the world, including the United States, have failed at this.”

He believes that in an imperfect world, it is best to support those in need as much as possible. And that includes the Trick or Treat program for UNICEF, which Kenny calls a “fantastic win” that has the added benefit of getting kids interested in “their fellow humans around the world.”

The idea that captivated the nation

The program's origins date back to the late 1940s. After World War II, famine affected large areas of the globe, including Europe and parts of Asia. The Presbyterian pastor of the day, Clyde Ellison, and his wife, Mary Emma, ​​believed in the power of community service. When Mary Emma saw well-fed American children trick-or-treating on Halloween, she had an idea.

Monroe Ellison, her son, remembers her thoughts. “These kids could be doing something really meaningful instead of just collecting candy for themselves,” he says. “So it was my mother who demanded from my father, 'We have to turn this into something good.'

“Their hearts yearned for these kids to be able to raise money for kids who needed it,” adds Diane Ellison, Monroe’s wife. “It’s vital because of the experience of empathy for other children—the power to do something.”

This is how the Halloween collections appeared. The Ellisons organized children from church Sunday schools to collect shoes, winter coats, soap and coins for needy children around the world. The first couple of years Church World Servicea religious group that fights global hunger and poverty was handing out supplies.

After connecting with philanthropist Gertrude Ely and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the Ellisons soon realized that UNICEF was the ideal charity to partner with. And by 1951, Diane said, the agency had turned the fledgling idea into a national coin collecting program.

The campaign featured orange picking boxes (often repurposed as milk cartons), public service announcements and songs, including one written by Diane. “Trick or treat for UNICEF, that's what we say… Children today helping children all over the world,” she croons during an interview with NPR.

“Children help each other”

The program was a success. “The Trick or Treat program for UNICEF has grown like wildfire,” says Monroe Ellison. “And the kids who are involved in it — and this is my parents’ idea — get as much out of it as the people who get it.”

One of these recipients is Your loveone of Sudan's lost boys, who ran away from home in the early 1990s during his country's civil war. He landed in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, where he lived for 13 years. “Our parents weren't with us,” he says.

Kher remembers how UNICEF provided him and other children with food and school supplies. He was told that these were items received from American children.

“I know we had some kid from New York or somewhere helping us,” he says. “It's very exciting[ing] to hear: “Oh, there are a lot of kids who want to help the kids in the refugee camp.” Seeing children helping children, children helping each other.”

Kher credits these gifts with helping him get the calories he needed as a child and get an education.

“Hope, that's what it meant to me at the time,” he says. “Helping kids become better people, and that’s what creates a community.”

The program enters a new and uncertain era

The Trick or Treat program for UNICEF began ten years before the creation of the United States Agency for International Development, which subsequently provided a wide range of humanitarian assistance and development programs around the world. It now appears to have outlived the foreign aid agency that Trump administration quickly dismantled.

But Kenney says the UNICEF campaign demonstrates America's long-standing support for international aid. “This program has been around for 75 years for a reason, right?” he asks. “The fact is that a lot of Americans really care, despite what's going on in Washington. Now more than ever, it is important for Americans to stand up and be seen that way.”

The US is still the world's largest donor of foreign aid in absolute terms. (Though, as Kenney notes, “if you count it per capita or as a percentage of GDP,” other countries top the list.) But global needs far outweigh this support.

This is where UNICEF's program can play a role, according to Kenny. “It provides some funding and some awareness, and we need both,” he says. “I hope that as we talk about children, when they grow up and start running the government themselves, that will be a sign that the future will look a little more generous than today.”

And this practice flourishes from generation to generation. Beverly Weiler, 75, remembers trick-or-treating for UNICEF as a child. On Halloween, she and her Quaker friends set up a table in their Santa Fe neighborhood with information, dolls from around the world and pumpkin soup so children and families can learn about the program and make it their own. She says the world's needs are more visible now than ever, including for children, and UNICEF's Trick or Treat program offers an antidote.

“It gives them a chance to let go of their worries a little bit,” Weiler says, “and gives them something positive and productive to be a part of something that makes sense in a world that often doesn’t.”