Auburn’s Halloween Harvest Fest returns Oct. 25 with trunk-or-treat, 50+ vendors and food-drive appeal

Kirsten Lang, recreation coordinator for the City of Auburn, said the Halloween Harvest Festival — a city-run fall event dating to about 1989 — will be held Saturday, Oct. 25 at West Grove Park from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The festival, Lang said, features trunk-or-treating along a roughly half-mile paved loop around the park, a competitive “trunk” decorating contest that includes city departments, about a dozen carnival games and multiple food trucks. “We prep with about 20,000 pieces of candy,” Lang said, and organizers asked attendees to bring canned-food donations for the Auburn Food Bank; the city typically collects “several 100 pounds of food,” she said.

Why it matters: the Harvest Festival is one of Auburn’s largest family-oriented fall events and provides downtown activity and charitable donations in the weeks before Halloween. The city moved the event from Washington Elementary to the Auburn Community Center about 10 years ago as attendance outgrew the school gym, Lang said.

Event format and logistics: Lang said this year’s roster includes about 52 vendor trunks — a mix of businesses, daycares, youth-serving groups, service organizations and city departments — plus five to seven food trucks. The trunk-and-path setup is designed to be rain-friendly; if weather forces changes, organizers plan a condensed layout and will move portions of programming indoors to keep people under cover.

The festival is geared to young families: Lang said programming is aimed primarily at children roughly ages 2–10 and that indoor partner activities, such as lantern tours at the White River Valley Museum, are family friendly. She emphasized the event is free and open to the public: “It’s guaranteed 52 pieces of candy,” she said when describing the trunk-per-child expectation from participating vendors.

Additional details: the city runs a judged trunk contest with a separate category for city departments; past winners have included parks maintenance. Organizers ask participants to bring canned goods for donation; Lang encouraged residents to contribute even a single item. Jonathan Glover, communications manager for the City of Auburn, and the podcast hosts also noted a general “rain contingency” and reminded listeners the festival is scheduled before Halloween so families can attend both the Harvest Festival and typical neighborhood trick-or-treating later in the week.

Looking ahead: the event schedule and vendor list are posted on the city’s community calendar. Lang asked attendees to check the city website or social channels for last-minute weather updates and layout changes.