(Photo: mainstreetcalumet.com) Calumet Village’s annual Trunk-or-Treat is scheduled for October 26, from 5-7 p.m., but currently the event needs volunteers to hand out candy.

CALUMET — Main Street Calumet is once again preparing for the village’s annual Halloween Trunk-or-Treat, and the Main Street Executive Director, Leah Polzien, has requested some street closures for the event. Planning and preparing for the event is actually quite involving, and requires the cooperation of the Village Council, which must approve the requested street closures.

Trunk-or-Treat is scheduled for 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26, but at the regular monthly September meeting, Polzien said Main Street will request the closures to start at 3:30 p.m.

While the event begins at 5 p.m., she said, vehicles need to be in their places sooner, so people have time to decorate the cars for the event.

“So, Main Street will put out parking restriction signs,” said Polzien. “We put those on the (business) doors, and we’ll take them down afterward. We’ll put them up two days beforehand, just so that people are aware. We haven’t had issues in the past, at least not that I’m aware of, but we don’t want to.”

Last year, approximately 500 kids participated in the event, said Polzien, and there has already been interest in people committing to this years.

“So, that’s great,” she said. “We would request that the village Street Department put out barricades at Scott, Portland and Oak, and then Main Street volunteered to move them any time they’re in the public’s way.”

Scott Street, she said needs to remain open, because of a large barricade placed at the south end of Fifth Street, near the visitor’s center, and Scott Street provides an avenue for vehicles to detour away from Fifth Street.

Trustee Nathan Anderson said he saw large numbers of trick-or-treaters at the event last year, and asked Polzien if the street closures she requested would provide enough room.

“What we found last year was that we had lots and lots of kids,” she replied. “We don’t have enough people to give out candy.”

She addressed the audience and added: “So, please come hand out candy.”

“We thought there was going to be a ton of people,” Polzien went on, “so we focused on the intersection of Portland. We started people both ways from Portland, going both ways. We couldn’t quite get — people were kind of very spread out, so we could potentially, we could request down to Elm, it’s just very unlikely that we would need to fill that much space, because that’s a very long block. So, that’s kind of where we would start.”

Trustee Roxanne King commented, saying she feels Trunk-or-Treat is a great event.

“It brings the community together, it gives the kids the another chance to put on their costumes and have fun downtown,” she said, “and I’m completely in favor of it. Not enough to hand out candy, but, I like it.”

The Village Council approved the street closure requests.