Carbondale police looking for volunteers for ‘Pumpkin Patrol’

CARBONDALE, Ill. (KFVS) - Police are looking for volunteers for its “Pumpkin Patrol.”

The Halloween safety patrol will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday, October 31.

The volunteers will be easy to spot in highly trafficked areas for trick-or-treating.

“Look for that orange vest. Normally, it will be teams of two, sometimes teams of three, it just depends. We will also have, depending on the weather at the time or depends on the mobility of the volunteers, sometimes we will have volunteers who will be in vehicles, but those vehicles will be driving with their hazards on, they’ll be driving very slow and they will have magnetic signs indicating they’re pumpkin patrol volunteers on the side,” explained Randy Mathis, Carbondale Police Department assistant to the chief of community information.

According to the a release from the Carbondale Police Department, they’ll patrol areas of the community where kids go to trick or treat.

“Every year it seems like a new area gets more popular or you get a new set of residences that will go more all out, which will tend to draw some more of that trick or treating activity, so what we do is we just in general keep an eye on the town and see which areas are getting to be more popular and then if we need to adjust our patrol the night of we adjust there,” Mathis said.

While police strongly encourage adults to accompany children, they say the volunteers will help find any potential hazards and be available for children in case they feel threatened.

The department just wants to make sure kids trick or treating have the best experience possible.

“This offers the community a chance to help serve, kind of like ours is a serving profession, gives people an opportunity to volunteer for their community and help bring that safer environment to the kids,” Mathis said.

Applications must be in by Friday October, 27, he added.

If you’re interested in being on the Pumpkin Patrol, you can contact Officer Randy Mathis at 618-457-3200, ext. 402 or send an email to rmathis@explorecarbondale.com.'

Mathis said you must pass a background check to become a volunteer.

As of Wednesday afternoon, October 25, the police department has nine volunteers signed up so far.

According to the Carbondale Police Department, they have sponsored the Pumpkin Patrol since 1992.

Copyright 2022 KFVS. All rights reserved.