Founded on a Toronto driveway in 2017, Treat Accessibly is a family-led movement working to make Halloween inclusive for children of all abilities. What began with six-year-old Siena Padulo recognizing that a child using a wheelchair couldn’t reach her family’s front door has grown into a national initiative, with more than 300,000 Canadian homes participating over the years. For Halloween 2026, Treat Accessibly is expanding its efforts by bringing entire neighbourhood streets together, with 29 official Treat Accessibly Halloween Streets across seven provinces, including nine in the Greater Toronto Area. Through free resources, lawn signs and volunteer Street Captains, the movement is helping families make trick-or-treating more accessible for children with mobility, sensory and neurological disabilities. We spoke with founder Rich Padulo to learn more.

Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.

Treat Accessibly is a family-founded movement making trick-or-treating accessible to every child, including kids with mobility, sensory and neurological disabilities. We’re not a charity or a nonprofit: families are never charged, and brand partners fund our free lawn signs. Our free tools show any home how to welcome every child, often just by moving the treats to the end of the driveway. This Halloween, for the first time, whole streets are doing it together, led by volunteer Street Captains and their neighbours.

What problem does it aim to solve?

Halloween is the one night every home welcomes every child. But for a child using a wheelchair or a walker, every set of front steps is a closed door. Flashing lights, fog machines and sudden screams can overwhelm a child with sensory or neurological disabilities. And the moment everyone expects a child to say “trick or treat” can be hard for a child who doesn’t speak. Many disabilities are invisible, so too many families just stay home.

The fix is small and free. When a home moves its treats to the end of the driveway and greets every child with patience, every kid gets the same Halloween. Kids learn it on Halloween. Then they live it every day.

When did you start/join it?

Halloween 2017, on our family’s driveway in Toronto. Siena was six.

What made you want to get involved?

Siena. We were putting pumpkins on our front stairs when she noticed a little boy using a wheelchair, and she realized he couldn’t get to our door. He couldn’t get to any door on our street. That night she made a sign that said “Accessible Trick-or-Treating” and put it on our lawn, a week before Halloween. On Halloween night, instead of trick-or-treating, she set up a treat table at the end of our driveway and greeted every child from there with us.

I’ve spent my whole career in events and communications, and nothing I’d ever created was as simple or as powerful as what my six-year-old had just done. I’ve always wanted to help kids. As a dad, I never want any child to feel left out. Siena showed me where to start.

What was the situation like when you started?

Every house on our street had stairs. For a child using a wheelchair, Halloween was a night of closed doors, and we had never thought about it. When Siena’s sign went up, 200 parents asked about it, and every one of them was as moved as we were. Seven families came because of that sign, all with a child with a mobility, sensory or neurological disability. Every one of them thanked Siena and told us no one had ever done this before.

The next morning I realized the fix wasn’t money or infrastructure. It was information, and a sign that tells a family their child is welcome here.

How has it changed since?

Families shared it. TV covered it every October. Brands funded free lawn signs. Nine Halloweens later, more than 300,000 Canadian homes have put out that sign.

From 2021 to 2025, our family hosted Treat Accessibly Halloween Villages in nine cities, and nearly 25,000 guests came last year alone. But every year, more than 1,000 communities asked us for a Village we couldn’t reach. Kids in every one of those communities deserve an accessible Halloween right where they live.

So this year, we’ve grown from Villages to streets. Canadians nominated more than 400 streets in nine provinces. More than 150 now have a volunteer Street Captain, and 29 are official Treat Accessibly Halloween Streets in seven provinces, nine of them in the GTA. A Village needs our family. A street needs a captain and neighbours.

What more needs to be done?

So much. Our goal is a million Canadian homes Treating Accessibly by 2030, and 1,000 Treat Accessibly Halloween Streets doing it on the same night by 2032. Our dream is that no family ever drives across town to find an accessible Halloween, because there’s a Treat Accessibly Halloween Street in every community.

Five years from now, I’d love Halloween to be exactly the same. Same costumes, same treats, same pumpkins on the front steps. The only difference is that accessible trick-or-treating is simply how Canada does Halloween. Not a special event. The default.

How can our readers help?

We don’t ask for donations. The best way to help is to Treat Accessibly this Halloween. It takes a few minutes:

-Move yourself and your treats to a step-free spot: the end of the driveway, the garage, the lawn by the sidewalk or the lobby. Keep the path clear and well lit.
-Keep lighting steady, not flashing, and turn down loud or sudden sounds.
-Greet every child calmly and be patient. Never require a child to speak. Take your cues from parents.
-Offer a non-food treat, like stickers or crayons, for kids with allergies or who don’t eat by mouth.
-Pick up a free Treat Accessibly lawn sign at a Pet Valu Family of Stores location while supplies last, or print one at treataccessibly.com/lawn-signs. Put it out up to two weeks before Halloween.
-Pledge your home at treataccessibly.com/treat-at-home.
-Want to do more? Rally your street. Sign up as a Street Captain at treataccessibly.com/halloween-streets/street-captain and your free Captain’s Toolkit arrives by email right away. Your neighbours join in about a minute at treataccessibly.com/join-your-street.

Do you have any events coming up?

Our biggest night of the year: Saturday, Oct. 31, the first Halloween on a Saturday since 2020. From 4 p.m., in daylight, nine official Treat Accessibly Halloween Streets in the GTA welcome every child: in Forest Hill, Little Italy, Midtown, the West Bend, Weston, Swansea (from 6 p.m.), Scarborough, Brampton and Bolton. Twenty more streets do the same across Canada, from Delta, B.C., to Dartmouth, N.S.

In Forest Hill, on a street that draws more than 1,000 trick-or-treaters, a dad of young kids who is also an accessibility advocate has teamed up with a neighbour who believes life should be accessible for all kids.

These are real neighbourhood streets, not ticketed events. Each one is ready to welcome the families who live nearby, so we don’t post addresses. If your child has a disability and you’d like the street closest to you, email me at [email protected].

And the closest accessible Halloween might be your own driveway. Any home can Treat Accessibly on Oct. 31.

Where can we follow you?

Website | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube

PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome local charity that you love?

Variety, the Children’s Charity of Ontario, and its home, Variety Village in Scarborough. It’s a sports and fitness centre built for people of all abilities, where kids with and without disabilities play side by side. That’s the world we want Halloween to help build, every day of the year.