Community — The Canadian Chronicle

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Community

Treat Accessibly: one Toronto family's driveway idea now runs on 29 Halloween streets across Canada

By The Canadian Chronicle · Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Treat Accessibly started in 2017 on a Toronto driveway, after six-year-old Siena Padulo noticed that a child using a wheelchair could not reach her family's front door. Her father, Rich Padulo, built the idea into a family-led movement: move the treats to the end of the driveway, and every child can take part in Halloween. More than 300,000 Canadian homes have participated over the years.

For Halloween 2026 — Saturday, October 31 — the movement is bringing whole streets in together for the first time: 29 official Treat Accessibly Halloween Streets across seven provinces, including nine in the Greater Toronto Area, led by volunteer Street Captains and their neighbours, with free lawn signs showing which homes are set up for children with mobility, sensory, and neurological disabilities. It is not a charity or a non-profit: families are never charged, and brand partners fund the free signs. The change costs a household nothing but a moved treat bowl — and it decides whether a child in a wheelchair spends Halloween as part of the street or watching it from the sidewalk.

Ontario opens $7M in seniors community grants — up to $25,000 per organization

By The Canadian Chronicle · Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Ontario has opened applications for the 2027–28 Seniors Community Grant Program. The intake, announced Tuesday, October 27, puts $7 million on the table — including an extra $1 million directed to senior veterans — with grants of up to $25,000 per selected organization.

The program funds the local work that keeps seniors connected: cooking workshops, fraud prevention sessions, digital literacy help and intergenerational games nights are among the activities the province names. Information webinars run November 10 and December 2, and applications close December 17, 2026.

For the legions, seniors' centres and church basements that run on volunteer steam, $25,000 is real money — a year of programming, not a photo opportunity. (Ontario Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility, via The Northern Current, October 27)