Too much Halloween candy? Sell it to a dentist
The pediatric dental clinic sees it as a good opportunity to communicate with kids that some types of candy are bad for their teeth.
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However you celebrate Halloween — dressing in costume, trick-or-treating, watching scary movies — chances are you'll end up with an overflowing candy jar. Why not give some back?
Dental clinics around the region, including Doc Bresler's Cavity Busters, a chain in Philadelphia, are participating in a Halloween candy buyback. You can sell your extra candy for a dollar per pound (up to 5 pounds) at one of Cavity Busters' two buyback locations.
The pediatric dental clinic sees the holiday as a good opportunity to communicate with kids that some types of candy are bad for their teeth.
"We kind of have a little bit of an educational session back and forth with the kids, just to let them know that the sticky candy isn't really the best because it comes in the most contact with your teeth, whereas the chocolate candy melts away," said Jeana DiLacqua, the company's community outreach director. "And we get that couple of minutes to discuss that with them and their parents as well."
In turn, the clinics, which started the program in 2014, will match the amount they pay for the candy with donations to local charities. This year, they'll donate to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation and Temple Dental Haiti Club, a student organization in Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry that helps provide dental health to the Haitian community.
The candy collected will be sent to Operation Gratitude, an organization that sends care packages to veterans and members of the armed forces.
This year, Cavity Busters will accept candy at their Northeast Philly location on from noon to 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, and 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2.
"We don't necessarily want to take away the holiday completely, so we try and offer them a service that they do come in," DiLacqua said.
Some schools, including Jenkintown and Overlook Elementary Schools in Montgomery County, are having schoolwide collections of excess candy and donating it to cavity busters, she said.
Cavity Busters is part of a national program, Halloween Buy Back 2018, that started in 2005 and has partnered with many other organizations and dental clinics around the country, including some in the Philadelphia suburbs and South Jersey.
Not in the city? No worries. Search your zip code on the Halloween Buy Back website for a location near you.