Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF? It's new and improved for 2022. Here's what to know

Swag bag? Check. Dime-store mask? Check.

There's one other thing that no self-respecting child, back in the day, would have gone trick-or-treating without. A little orange box, with a coin slot at the top — remember?

"Trick-or-treat for UNICEF!" In addition to dispensing Tootsie Rolls and Mars Bars, householders were also expected to drop a coin or two into the slot.

The money would be used by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (since renamed the United Nations Children's Fund) to buy food and vaccines for needy children overseas. To date, the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF program has raised more than $195 million.

"I grew up in Minnesota, in a smaller-size town, and I just remember going down the street and feeling great when people put coins in the box, " said Michael J. Nyenhuis, president and CEO of UNICEF USA.

"It felt even better than getting candy in the bag," he said. "It was such a moment for me, to really for the first time understand that there were kids like me in other parts of the world that needed our help, and I could actually do something about it. It felt really empowering."

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Kids still trick-or-treat for UNICEF, though maybe not in the numbers they did in the '60s and '70s. Which is why this year, UNICEF is hoping the reinvigorate the program with a digital-age update.

Out of the box

The relaunched 2022 version dispenses with the little boxes. Instead, kids will carry QR codes on their phones or on paper (parents can print out the code on a coloring-book page, which kids can use to make their own Halloween picture).

"The kids at the door will say, 'Trick-or-treat for UNICEF' and hold out the QR code," Nyenhuis said. "The person can use their phone to scan the code and go directly to the donation page."

The program had to change, Nyenhuis said, because the culture has changed.

For one thing, most homeowners no longer have piles of coins lying around. For another, the distribution of those coin boxes — and later, the collecting and mailing of the money — had been in the hands of volunteer grade-school teachers. Most no longer have the time or the resources.

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"This was actually a big burden on teachers," Nyenhuis said. "We were grateful for them doing this. Imagine 20 kids bringing in boxes of coins, and you as a teacher had the responsibility to gather all those coins, package them for us, and send them to us."

As a fringe benefit, a QR code might inspire larger donations. Dollars, rather than quarters.

"They can donate what they want, but I would assume they would give us a dollar or two, or five, or 10," Nyenhuis said. "We hope it's a motivator to — as we say — 'Put Some Meaning in Your Halloweening.' But it's also a reminder that there are an unprecedented amount of children around the world who need our help."

Who could object?

All this might seem like a sideshow compared to the main business of Halloween — specifically costume-wearing, pumpkin-carving and candy-collecting. But actually, the UNICEF program played a key role in mainstreaming the whole trick-or-treat custom, said Halloween expert Lesley Bannatyne.

"Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF was the final thing that made trick-or-treating OK for the American public," said Bannatyne, author of "Halloween Nation."

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Trick-or-treating had only became widespread in the 1940s and '50s. And even then, it seemed dubious to many. "Some homeowners thought it was extortion," she said.

They weren't totally wrong.

Tricks, rather than treats, were the main point of Halloween during most of its history. The notion of "taming" the holiday by giving the householder a choice of forking over candy or suffering a soaped window or stolen gate seemed, to some, a bit like paying protection.

"Not everyone was on board with it," Bannatyne said. "It wasn't universally accepted until UNICEF came up with Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. Which was brilliant. Because now, it was a charitable thing. Over the course of a decade or so, it became national. It was almost wrong to turn out the light at night, if the kids were going around collecting money for charity."

In fact, it was not UNICEF that came up with the idea — though it was the beneficiary.

It was a Presbyterian pastor from Pennsylvania, Clyde Allison, and his wife, teacher Mary Emma Allison, who hatched the scheme in 1947. "Most of these great ideas are started by someone who says, 'Hey, why don't we?' " Nyenhuis said.

The war in Europe had left in its wake millions of refugee children; meanwhile kids at home were trick-or-treating without a care in the world. "How do we make this into something good?" Mrs. Allison asked (according to her son Monroe Allison, who recalled the incident in 2019). "We can," her husband responded.

Coining a new tradition

Their first project involved, not coins, but shoes: kids during Halloween 1948 collected old footwear to be repaired and sent, through the World Church Service, to kids in refugee camps.

By 1949, the World Church Service had all the shoes it needed, and the Allisons looked for another charity. UNICEF, created in 1946 to aid children and mothers affected by World War II, was a pet project of Eleanor Roosevelt. The Allisons contacted her, and the first Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF was held in October 1950. It was an immediate success.

"[There was] a phone call from the office of Mrs. Roosevelt," Monroe Allison said. "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, she told us, had raised more funds for UNICEF than any other event, ever."

Halloween has changed a lot since then. In some places, trick-or-treating is on the wane. But the hardships that inspired Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF are — unfortunately — not going anywhere. Every dime helps.

Among other things, the UNICEF funds are being used to keep girls in school. "In a lot of places around the world, that's key to helping poverty," Nyenhuis said. They're also been used for vaccination campaigns. "We vaccinate half the world's kids every year with basic childhood vaccines, and that has drastically reduced under-5 mortality," he said.

Which is why, Nyenhuis said, it's important to keep the program going. And to reinvent it, for the 21st century.

"We all remember carrying those little orange boxes collecting coins," he said. "But one of the things that's happening is that Halloween is becoming the fastest growing holiday in the U.S. And it's no longer just a kids' day. Young adults are out at costume parties. People are decorating their homes in ways they hadn't before. One of the things we want to do is introduce Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF to a broader audience."

For more information about participating in Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, visit unicefusa.org/trick-or-treat.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF Halloween changes. What to know