For 50 years, trick-or-treaters collected coins as well as candy for UNICEF's campaign to help children. But the distinctive orange boxes won't be seen this Halloween, as the charity tries new methods to raise funds.
The United Nations Children's Fund, which tries to help the world's most vulnerable young people, retired the cardboard box campaign in 2006.
Instead, UNICEF has been heavily promoting classroom fundraising events that aim at actively involving children in the charity. Children have been constructing symbolic paper schools in October, earning a building brick for every $20 raised.
Half of the proceeds raised in Canada will be directed to a school development program in Africa that provides funds for classroom construction, teacher training and school materials Malawi, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Angola.
The rest of the funds raised will be used to support health, education and child protection programs in other areas of the world.
Other UNICEF programs include a workplace costume challenge for adults and an online fundraising program. The organization has set a target of $5.7 million in 2006.
P.E.I. charity takes up its boxes
Meanwhile, the P.E.I. chapter of the Children's Wish Foundation in P.E.I. is launching a fundraising pilot project that will see 1,400 children collect money on Halloween night.
Lee Gauthier, the director of the chapter, said UNICEF's decision not to distribute its donation boxes to children for Halloween led to an ideal fundraising opportunity for Children's Wish.
"We were receiving numerous phone calls from individuals in the community who had been informed that another charity was not going to be doing coin boxes this year with the schools," Gauthier said, "and they felt it would be a great opportunity."
Gauthier said if the program succeeds, the organization — which grants wishes to seriously ill children — will expand the program on the Island.
Canadians raised $91 M through orange boxes
The tradition of Halloween fundraising began in Philadelphia in 1950, when a small Sunday school class raised $17 and sent the money to UNICEF.
Other groups informally followed suit in Canada and the United States and in 1955, the movement was formalized with a UNICEF trick-or-treat campaign.
Over the years, Canadians have raised $91 million as part of the Halloween box program.
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