Every October, the parking lot at 1715 Hitching Post Drive in Green River fills with decorated car trunks, costumed kids, and the smell of food trucks — and for a couple of hours, a place that spends most of the year quietly serving some of Sweetwater County's youngest residents throws open its doors to the whole community.
The Annual Trunk-or-Treat hosted by the Sweetwater County Child Developmental Center returns on Saturday, October 17, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the center's Green River campus. It's free and open to everyone. There will be trunks handing out treats, Halloween games, temporary tattoos, food trucks, and "and more," per the center's own invitation. Kids are encouraged to come in costume. The event is also still looking for people and organizations willing to host a trunk or set up as a vendor; anyone interested can call 307-872-3290.
To understand why a child development center would put on a community Halloween party, it helps to know what the SCCDC actually is — and how close it came to the kind of funding crisis that has threatened similar centers around Wyoming.
The Sweetwater County Child Developmental Center is a private, nonprofit organization that has served families in the county since 1979, according to the center and nonprofit records. It is the State of Wyoming's Early Intervention and Education Program for children from birth through age five in Sweetwater County, and it operates two campuses — one in Green River and one in Rock Springs. Its certified teachers and therapists provide developmental screenings and evaluations, cognitive and pre-academic skill development, social and emotional development, and occupational, speech, feeding, and physical therapies. For children under three, the center runs what's known as the Birth to Three program, or Part C, delivering services in the home or the child's natural environment and coordinating care with parents. For children three to five who qualify, it builds Individualized Education Programs and runs inclusive preschool classrooms using Wyoming Early Learning Standards and curricula including Core Knowledge Language Arts, Eureka Math, Heggerty Phonological Awareness, and Zoo Phonics. The center describes its mission as providing "a compassionate, steady and kindergarten ready environment for children, families and our community."
That mission has been tested by the economics of early intervention in Wyoming. In a SweetwaterNOW report on funding shortfalls across the state's child development centers, the Child Development Services of Wyoming warned that centers could begin closing without an external cost adjustment from the Legislature. Centers were receiving an average of $8,674 per child to provide early intervention services — money that covers speech services, facility costs, specialist services, and more — and a $4 million cost adjustment distributed during the 2022–2024 biennium was described by one director as "a drop in the bucket." The executive director of the Children's Learning Center of Teton County said that without a substantial increase, her region might have to discontinue services altogether.
The Sweetwater County center, though, was not in danger of closing. Niki McKenzie, the center's assistant director, told SweetwaterNOW that while the center might have to look at areas to cut back, partnerships it had forged with local industries helped it navigate the shortfalls. Recent donations had come from Church and Dwight and Tata Chemicals. That reliance on local industry and community goodwill is part of what makes an event like the Trunk-or-Treat more than a seasonal diversion: it's a way for a nonprofit that depends on community support to put itself in front of the families it serves, and to invite the wider public into a campus many residents may never have had reason to visit.
The Trunk-or-Treat itself is a relatively recent addition to the center's calendar. When SweetwaterNOW covered an early edition of the event, it described the center as "new" and noted that its parent/teacher organization was working to build community awareness of the organization and the services it provides, while also offering support and activities for students and staff at both the Rock Springs and Green River centers. That first event ran from 4 to 6 p.m. and was free to the public, held on the Green River campus at the same Hitching Post Drive address, and billed as a kickoff to Halloween weekend. The event has since become an annual fixture, and the format has stayed consistent: free, family-focused, and open to anyone who shows up.
The timing of this year's event, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on a Saturday, is a daytime slot that suits younger children — a sensible choice for an organization whose entire clientele is under six. Trunk-or-Treats have become a staple of American Halloween because they solve a practical problem: instead of sending small children door to door after dark, families gather in a parking lot where cars are parked in a row, trunks are decorated, and candy is handed out in a contained, well-lit space. For a center that serves children with developmental delays and disabilities, that accessibility matters. A flat, familiar parking lot with games and temporary tattoos is easier terrain than a dark sidewalk, and the event doubles as a low-pressure way for families to connect with staff and with each other.
For Green River families, the appeal is simpler. It's a free Saturday outing with candy at the end. But the organization behind it has been part of the county's fabric for more than four decades, quietly providing the screenings, therapies, and preschool classrooms that help children reach their developmental milestones — and once a year, it turns its parking lot into a party and invites everyone in.