Our Trunk or Treat Turns 10
Last October we celebrated a decade of Fall Family Fun Nights
Last October, we celebrated our 10th Annual Fall Family Fun Night. (This year will be our 11th and you can let us know you’re coming at our Facebook event).
This event stands out every year because it’s typically our largest community gathering. But it’s also special for another reason—it was the very first neighborhood outreach we hosted when Griggs began revitalizing back in 2015. Ten years later, it’s still one of our favorite traditions.
It all started when one of our deacons suggested we host something called a Trunk or Treat. For some of us, that was the first time we’d even heard the term. We wondered if it would work—would anyone really show up to collect candy from the backs of our cars?
We still remember that first year: about 50 people from the neighborhood came. At the time, that was bigger than our Easter crowd!
Trunk or Treat is essentially kid-friendly Halloween tailgating. The idea first caught on in the early 1990s, when churches were looking for ways to connect with their communities. Around that same time, parents were growing uneasy about traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating due to a wave of safety concerns circulating in the news.
The first reported church Trunk or Treat took place at Hilldale Baptist Church in Center Point, Alabama, in 1994. The Birmingham News wrote about it, noting that kids up to sixth grade could participate, and the church hosted games, a ball pit, and even gave away prizes—including bicycles!
Fast forward a decade, and Trunk or Treats had become a fall staple for churches across the country. Locally, The Greenville News mentioned one at Providence Presbyterian Church in 2003.
A few years later, in 2006, The New York Times covered the growing Trunk or Treat phenomenon, and NPR revisited it in a detailed piece as recently as 2023.
As of 2025, nearly every church on the West Side of Greenville hosts a Trunk or Treat. In fact, there’s at least one in every mill village—sometimes more.
Interestingly, the idea has grown beyond churches. Local businesses now hold their own versions, including car dealerships, which put on some of the largest ones (though let’s be honest—they want to sell you the car after you pick out your candy).
At churches like Griggs, however, we’re not trying to sell anything—we’re trying to give something away: the gospel. Trunk or Treats are a simple, meaningful way to bring the neighborhood to the church and the church to the neighborhood.
Over the past decade, we’ve set up prayer tents, handed out free Bibles, invited families to church services and our Neighborhood Network Kids program, and shared information about upcoming community gatherings. Last year, we even had 15 new families sign up to receive Saltbox Quarterly.
Jesus taught, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) For us, one of the ways we’ve done that is by serving a free dinner each year during the event.
During our first couple of Fall Family Fun Nights, we held everything in our church parking lot, serving chili dinners inside to give people a warm place to gather. But the event grew quickly, and soon we outgrew the space.
For the next few years, we moved the event to a nearby field in the neighborhood—right in the heart of Poe Mill. It brought out even more families, but we learned a few lessons the hard way.
For one, it’s a lot darker in a field than in a parking lot. People couldn’t see the trunks, the candy, or each other’s costumes!
And let’s just say the power situation was…creative. One year, we ran an extension cord from a nearby building to a power strip in the middle of the field and plugged in about ten crockpots of chili. The fact that we didn’t blow a fuse—or open a portal to another dimension—was truly by the grace of God.
For the past four years, we’ve teamed up with our good friends at Park Place Church of God, hosting the event on their property with bounce houses, yard games, and plenty of food. Park Place always makes their famous Walking Tacos (which run out every year, no matter how many they prepare), while Griggs provides the desserts—cakes, cookies, cupcakes, and more.
It’s been a thrilling ten years. We’re thankful to Jesus for our church, to our church for serving, and to Poe Mill for showing up year after year.
