Goats and Soda : NPR

This is the 75th year that costumed children have requested not only candy, but candy or treats from UNICEF to help children in need. The program has raised more than $200 million since its launch.

UNICEF United States

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UNICEF United States

Every year, Halloween triggers the sale of $3.9 BILLION dollars worth of candy in the United States. But that’s not the only impressive statistic related to trick-or-treating.

Several years after World War II, a couple from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had an idea: what if children also asked for coins to donate to UNICEF, the United Nations agency that protects the rights of children around the world. This year marks the 75th anniversary of this initiative, called A gift for UNICEF. And some $200 million was raised during that time.

This year’s campaign features model Heidi Klum, is part of an esteemed group of celebrity supporters past and present like 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 well-nourished,” said Shelley Diamond, a spokesperson for UNICEF United States.

But in 2025, it’s not just the birthday that matters. At a time of a dramatic and abrupt reduction in federal foreign aidsome say this simple practice is more important than ever.

“We have fully adequate resources to ensure 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 task.”

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

An idea that conquered the nation

The program’s origins date back to the late 1940s. After World War II, hunger struck large areas of the world, including Europe and parts of Asia. A Presbyterian minister at the time, Clyde Allison 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 Allison, his son, remembers his reflection. “These kids could do something really meaningful instead of just collecting candy for themselves,” he says. “So it was my mother who asked my father, ‘We need to turn this into something good.'”

“Their hearts longed for these children to be able to raise money for children who needed it,” adds Diane Allison, Monroe’s wife. “It’s vitally important because of that experience of empathy for other children – the power to do something.”

This is how the Halloween collections were born. The Allisons organized a collection of shoes, winter coats, soap and coins for children in need elsewhere in the world. During the first two years, the Worldwide Church Servicea faith group that fights world hunger and poverty, distributed the goods.

After contacting philanthropist Gertrude Ely and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the Allisons quickly realized that UNICEF was an ideal charity to partner with. And by 1951, Diane says the agency had turned the fledgling idea into a national coin collection program.

The campaign included orange collection boxes (often transformed into milk boxes), public service announcements and songs, including one written by Diane. “Trick or treat for UNICEF, that’s what we say…Kids helping kids around the world today,” she croons during her interview with NPR.

“Children help each other”

The program was a success. “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF went like wildfire,” says Monroe Allison. “And the kids who participate in it – and this is my parents’ idea – get as much out of it as the people who benefit from it.”

One of these recipients is Manyang Kherone of Sudan’s lost boys, who fled his home in the early 1990s during his country’s civil war. He ended up in a refugee camp in Ethiopia where he lived for 13 years. “Our parents weren’t there with us,” he said.

Kher remembers UNICEF providing him and other children with food and school supplies. They were items, he was told, from American children.

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

Kher credits these gifts with helping him get essential calories as a boy – and get an education.

“I hope, that’s what it meant to me at the time,” he says. “Helping children become better human beings, and that’s what creates society.”

The program enters a new and uncertain era

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF began a decade before the creation of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which continued to provide a wide range of humanitarian and development assistance programs around the world. It now appears to have outlasted the foreign aid agency, which the The Trump administration quickly dismantled.

But Kenny says the UNICEF campaign reveals long-standing U.S. support for international aid. “This program has been around for 75 years for a reason, right?” he asks. “It’s that a lot of Americans really care, despite what’s happening in Washington. It’s even more important than ever that Americans stand up and be cared for in this way.”

The United States remains the world’s largest foreign aid donor in absolute dollars. (However, Kenny notes, “if you calculate it on a per capita level or as a percentage of GDP,” other countries top the list.) But the world’s needs far exceed this support.

According to Kenny, this is where the UNICEF program can play a role. “It provides part of the funding and part of the awareness, and we need both,” he says. “I hope that because these are children we are talking about, when they grow up and start running the government themselves, it will be a sign that the future is going to be a little more generous than today.”

And it is a practice that has flourished from generation to generation. Beverley Weiler, 75, remembers going 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 different countries and pumpkin soup, so children and families could learn about the program and do it themselves. She says the world’s needs are more visible than ever, including for children – and Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF offers an antidote.

“It gives them a place to express a little bit of their concerns,” Weiler says, “and gives them something positive and productive to participate in that makes sense in a world that often doesn’t make sense.”