HOA Held a Halloween Party That Excluded Poor Kids, So A Woman Planned Her Own Party That Became A Huge Hit And Is Still Going Years Later

Matthew Gilligan

3 months ago

Source: Reddit/Unsplash/@clayleconey

Now this is a Reddit story with a wholesome ending!

And, let’s be honest, we don’t see many of those…

So start now and dig in!

We think you’ll be impressed!

No Halloween party for everyone? Okay, we’ll make our own.

“I just heard this story from someone I work with — not a coworker of mine, but the director of a partner organization, who we’ll call Evelyn.

Evelyn’s organization, a community non-profit that provides behavioral health prevention and treatment services, is located in a desirable and tourist-focused area of the state that has a wide disparity in income levels.

It’s the kind of place that everyone wants to live but few can afford to. You’ll find enclaves of rich folks living in luxury surrounded by neighborhoods of poorer folks, many of whom work in the service industry serving the rich locals and tourists.

Sounds like a good idea…

5 or 6 years ago she heard that every year one local HOA in a wealthy area threw a bangin’ Halloween party for the kids with lots of free candy and fun things to do. Sounds great!

But…

There was just one problem: only the (mostly white) kids whose families lived in that HOA were allowed to attend the party, and the HOA was VERY strict about it.

One side of this neighborhood is bordered by a public park where both kids from the HOA area and the surrounding poorer streets (mostly Latino families) play together.

For their Halloween party, the HOA set up barricades on their side of the park to block kids from the other side coming over and even had adults stationed around the perimeter to keep non-HOA kids out.

What this ends up looking like is unfortunately nothing new. The rich white kids have their own exclusive party and the poorer kids of color get nothing, even though the rich folks have plenty to share.

Of course the HOA isn’t legally obligated to let people who don’t belong to the HOA attend their party, but ethically it’s a pretty gross move to exclude children from a holiday celebration in their own neighborhood just because of what street their family can afford to live on.

Now being the director of a non-profit that serves mostly lower-income people, Evelyn is very passionate about inclusion, so when she heard about this she was NOT happy.

She is the kind of person who will do anything in her power to correct an injustice, no matter how small, so she went directly to this HOA to complain. She wrote emails, attended public meetings to speak to them, anything she could to convince them it was unfair of them to be so exclusionary.

No dice…

But unfortunately the HOA wouldn’t change their minds. They just kept reiterating that, “These other families don’t pay HOA dues, so we’re not letting them in to a party that is paid for by those dues.”

So Evelyn thought, “Fine, if these NIMBY jerks are gonna keep gatekeeping, then I’ll have to step up to fill in the gap!”

So her non-profit started holding their own annual Halloween party — an even bigger, better one, where EVERYONE is welcome (plus they give out the best candy).

At first, mostly the poorer kids who were excluded from the HOA party attended. But soon word got back to the other kids about how awesome this Halloween party was, and they started wanting to go too.

Now years later, even the HOA kids would rather go to this party than the HOA one, and after attending both parties they tell their parents, “The neighborhood one was kind of lame… I liked the [organization] one better.”

Their annual Halloween party has gotten so popular locally that starting this year they’ll be throwing a December holiday party too. And, as always, everyone is welcome.”

Here’s how people reacted on Reddit.

This person shared their thoughts.