The 15th annual Halloween Spooktacular Safestop was held on the lawn of the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford to hand out candy and distribute information about child safety on Wednesday night.

The event was organized by Family Crisis Services of Northwest Mississippi, under the leadership of violence prevention coordinator Angie Hankins.

“Every year we do Safestop Halloween Spooktacular as a safe place for kids to go trick-or-treating because a lot of neighborhoods aren’t safe for kids and going up to strangers’ houses and getting candy is not very safe in some areas, so we do this every year,” Libby Lytle, a retired law enforcement worker who attended the event as a member of the family crisis center, said.

One mother, Megan McDonald, attended with her two daughters dressed as Rapunzel and a dalmation, the younger of which was trick-or-treating for the first time.

“We just wanted to have some good family fun,” McDonald said.

Bennie Waller, a finance professor from Virginia teaching at the University of Mississippi for the year, also attended the event with his daughter.

“We’re new to Oxford and we came so she could trick-or-treat with her friends,” Waller said.