The annual Ottawa Treat Accessibly Halloween Village returned to Baywood Drive in Stittsville on Sunday bringing Halloween magic to children with disabilities. Treat Accessibly creates a curbside accessible trick or treating experience that promotes learning about accessible inclusion for everyone. Around 2,000 kids and parents with and without disabilities took to the streets to go house-to-house trick-or-treating, with no barriers to enjoying a traditional Halloween experience. This is Sara Labelle and Derek Robinson’s second year attending with their sons who both have accessible needs, Jackson is in a wheelchair and Knox is autistic. “We’ve always have found it challenging to be able to go up, and the fact that Jackson’s able to get candy himself in his own bag is pretty amazing, because normally we have to ring the bell for him, and he sits back. Something like this is just it’s wonderful for him,” says Labelle. The annual event featured a live DJ, magicians and costumed performers, accessible treat stations for children, and festivities for families to enjoy Halloween throughout the afternoon. “The fact that we can all do something together, we can all enjoy it together, that’s like the big thing. We look forward to it every single year,” says mom Sadie Lajoie. “When we go trick-or-treating, we’ve noticed there’s a lot of front steps and we can’t get up there. This she can do. She can get into everything. There’s like little toys as well. It’s not just food.” The event aims to make Halloween the first accessible tradition in the world. One in 10 school-age children in Canada identify as having one or more disabilities which prevents them from being included in trick or treating with the rest of the world. “Being a part of a family that has a child disability, it’s nice to come here and meet other families that are similar to ours. Sometimes on actual Halloween day, it’s difficult for him to get into certain houses if there are stairs or a porch. He has to wait at the end of the driveway. For this event, he’s able to just go to the end of the driveway,” says mom Lindsay Verner. This family-friendly event is powered by hundreds of homeowner volunteers who support the initiative. Event’s roots inspired by six-year-old It started in 2017 when six-year-old Siena Padulo and Rich Padulo were putting pumpkins on the stairs to their door and saw a little boy using a wheelchair. It then occurred to Siena that he couldn’t trick or treat at their house because of the stairs. The nationwide movement began when this family made their home accessible, leading to others following behind. It has since spread to more than 250,000 homes across Canada, with nine fully accessible Halloween Villages in cities from coast to coast to coast having participated. “We treated from the end of our driveway that Halloween. That night, everything changed for us when we had seven families say that they’d never seen anything like this before. Typically, they would sit it out or wait at the curb. This included them and their siblings,” says Rich Padulo, creator of Treat Accessibly Halloween Village. Other cities joining the Halloween Villages across Canada this month include Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton, Calgary, Edmonton, St. Albert, and Surrey. “It just means so much to be able to go trick-or-treating in a way that is just so accessible for our daughter. It’s hard at actual Halloween where you have to go up the stairs, you have to go up driveways. It just it’s so much easier here,” says Mark Radley, whose daughter has a disability. The event is also supported by CHEO and other children’s accessibility organizations, where many of the guests attend from. Treat Accessibly is also funded by corporate partners Canadian Tire, REMAX, Kinder and Pet Valu, who support the movement’s mission to create inclusive Halloween experiences for children of all abilities. “The goal that we have for the future is one million homes truly accessible by 2030, making Halloween the most accessible night of the year in communities not only in Canada but the world. We want to show our children that for them, we can adapt to anything together,” says Padulo. Padulo believes any home can do it, and that even if someone has stairs they can treat at the end of the driveway making all the difference for their community. “Today marks a very special day because it’s also, in Ottawa, going to be the year that we receive a proclamation for Treat Accessible Preparation Day on October 16th, which will invite homeowners across Ottawa to do this on Halloween night and make Halloween accessible for everybody simply by treating from the end of their driveway and showing kids that they support them in every way,” says Padulo.
