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Fall festival & trunk-or-treat

Every trunk cleared before the gates open

A trunk-or-treat puts more children in front of more unscreened adults than almost anything else you run — and the volunteer list is still changing the night before. Screen every festival volunteer for $5, with all 50 state sex-offender registries included and most results back in minutes.

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All 50 state registries + NSOPW · Results in minutes · No contract · FCRA-compliant

EVERY TRUNKcleared before the gates open

The roles that put a volunteer alone with a child

A festival feels like a party, so it rarely gets the scrutiny a weekly children’s program does. Look at what the roles actually involve.

Screen

Trunk hosts

Each decorated trunk is a station a child approaches alone while parents watch from a distance. Trunk hosts are often members, neighbors, or friends-of-friends who signed up on a clipboard — the least-vetted adults at the whole event.

Screen

Games, crafts & bounce houses

Face painting, cake walks, craft tables, and inflatables mean sustained one-on-one contact with children, frequently out of a parent’s sight line and sometimes inside a tent or an inflatable.

Screen

Candy & prize handouts

Anyone handing something directly to a child has a moment of contact and a reason to lean in. It is the most common festival role and the one filled last, often on the morning itself.

Screen

Photo booths & costume contests

Volunteers who photograph children, help with costumes, or run a stage area handle images of minors — which raises a safeguarding question and a data question about where those photos end up.

Map your festival before you assign anyone

Not every job needs a check. Sorting stations into “unsupervised contact with children” and “everything else” is the fastest way to protect the event without turning away help.

TrunksFace paintingBounce housePhoto boothParkingKitchenSetup / teardownUnsupervised child contact — screen theseFine for a late, unscreened sign-up

Why festival volunteers slip through

These are not your regulars

A fall festival is designed to draw the wider community, and the volunteer list grows the same way — friends, cousins, new attendees, the person who offered in the parking lot. Your children’s-ministry screening never touches them.

The roster changes until Thursday

Festival sign-ups churn right up to the day before. A screening process measured in weeks cannot keep up, so most organizations quietly run the event with a crew nobody has checked.

It is your largest child-facing event

A trunk-or-treat can put more children in front of more unvetted adults in two hours than a whole season of regular programming — and it is open to the public by design.

Your insurer likely already expects it

Many church and school policies expect screening for volunteers in child-facing roles at organization-sponsored events. A festival is exactly that, even when it feels like a community party.

If you already screen for weekly programming, this is the same standard applied to the event — church background checks, youth clubs, and school volunteers all work the same way.

Two weeks, start to gates open

Fast enough for a roster that changes on Thursday — and structured enough that nobody has to make a judgment call at 8am on Saturday.

2 weeks out

Open sign-ups with the link attached

Put the screening link or QR code in the very first sign-up message — the bulletin, the group chat, the volunteer table. Buried in a follow-up email, it gets ignored.

1 week out

Most of your crew is already cleared

Volunteers finish the form on their phones in a few minutes and clear results typically come back the same session. You are watching a shrinking list of stragglers, not starting from zero.

48 hours out

Chase the gaps, assign the roles

Match cleared volunteers to trunks, booths, and photo duty. Anyone still outstanding gets a role with no unsupervised child contact.

Festival morning

Open the gates knowing

Your roster shows exactly who cleared. Late sign-ups go to setup, parking, or kitchen — help accepted, policy intact.

One QR code

Drop it on the sign-up sheet, in the bulletin, or in the group chat. Volunteers apply on their own phones.

3,241 sources

A national criminal search plus every state sex-offender registry and the national registry, on every $5 check.

Reusable clearance

The same volunteers come back at Christmas and next fall. A check already run costs you nothing again.

A festival safeguarding playbook

  • Put the screening link in the first sign-up message, not a follow-up nobody opens.
  • Screen every role with unsupervised child contact: trunks, booths, inflatables, face painting, photos, and anyone walking children between stations.
  • Pair volunteers. Two adults at every station is the cheapest safeguarding measure at any festival, screened or not.
  • Brief trunk hosts to stay outside the vehicle and keep the trunk lid up — visibility is a control in itself.
  • Keep the clearance on file. The same faces come back for the Christmas event and next year’s festival, and a check already run costs nothing to reuse.

A check is a decision aid, not a door policy. Two adults per station, visible name badges, and trunk lids kept up will do as much for a festival as any screening will. Use them together. What the $5 search does and does not cover is set out plainly in our Trust Center.

Questions organizers ask

Do trunk-or-treat volunteers really need background checks?

Any volunteer with unsupervised contact with children should be screened, and a trunk-or-treat is built around exactly that: a child approaching an adult at a car, briefly out of a parent’s reach. Most churches and schools that screen children’s-ministry volunteers apply the same standard to festival roles once they think it through — the setting is more public, not less risky.

We only have a week before the event. Is that enough time?

Usually, yes. Volunteers complete the application on their phones in a few minutes, and a clear check typically comes back in minutes rather than days. The limiting factor is how quickly people fill in the form, which is why the link should go out with the first sign-up message.

What does it cost to screen 40 festival volunteers?

$5 each — $200 for 40 people — and only for volunteers who actually complete their application. There is no platform fee or subscription, and unused credits never expire, so anything left over carries into your Christmas event.

Can volunteers pay their own $5?

Yes. You can switch on volunteer-pays so each person covers their own check when they apply, which many organizations use for seasonal events where the volunteer list is large and the budget is not.

Does the check include the sex-offender registry?

Every $5 check includes all 50 state sex-offender registries plus the national registry (NSOPW), along with a national criminal search across county, state and federal sources and federal watchlists. For a public event with children present, that registry search is usually the first thing a parent or board member asks about.

What do we do about someone who signs up the night before?

Decide the fallback role in advance. Keep a short list of jobs with no unsupervised child contact — parking, setup, teardown, kitchen, supply runs — and place late sign-ups there. You accept the help without making an exception you would struggle to explain afterwards.

Do we need to screen teenage volunteers?

Background checks are run on adults; a minor has no meaningful adult criminal record to search. The usual approach is to screen everyone 18 and over and to pair teen helpers with a screened adult rather than leaving them to supervise younger children alone.

Running other seasonal events? See day-of-service screening for large one-day crews, or the full volunteer background check guide.

Set it up before sign-ups open

Create your organization free, drop the QR code on the sign-up sheet, and know every trunk and booth is cleared before a single child arrives. $5 a volunteer, credits never expire.

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