You've Been BOO'd! Now What?
You found a surprise on your porch. Someone probably ran away giggling. Welcome to BOO It Forward.
First Things First: You've Been BOO'd
If a BOO Bag just appeared on your porch, congratulations. You are officially part of a chain reaction of Halloween kindness making its way through Central Pennsylvania.
Macaroni KID and an incredible crew of local businesses and organizations started more than 100 BOO Bags traveling through Hershey, Harrisburg, Carlisle, the West Shore and surrounding communities. Now the fun gets to keep moving.
There is no complicated assignment hiding underneath the candy. Hang your sign, enjoy your goodies and, if you can, surprise another family. One BOO is enough. More is fun. The point is kindness, not creating another October obligation for parents.
How to BOO It Forward
Steal Our BOO Supplies
We already did some of the work for you. Grab the sign, print the instructions, add a few activities, raid whatever Halloween goodies are already hiding in your house and send the BOO on its way.
Print Your "We've Been BOO'd!" Sign
Print this sign and hang it somewhere visible in your front window or on your door. It lets the next crew of neighborhood BOO bandits know that your house has already been hit.
Full disclosure: this is the pretty full-color version. Your printer may sigh dramatically, but at least it's only one page.
Stick it in the window, tape it to the door or display it wherever future BOO delivery crews can spot it before they begin their unnecessarily elaborate getaway.
Print the "You've Been BOO'd!" Instructions
This one goes inside the BOO surprise you're delivering. It tells the next family what just landed on their porch and how to keep BOO It Forward moving.
Otherwise you're just anonymously abandoning Halloween treats on someone's property, which is generous but admittedly a little harder to explain.
Tuck one instruction sheet into every BOO you deliver. That's how the next family finds the printables, hangs their sign and sends the fun to somebody else.
Add a Printable Activity Book
Print, staple and tuck this Halloween activity book into the BOO Bag you're sending next. Print the whole thing or choose a few favorite pages.
There are no BOO police. We checked.
You do not need to recreate the giant original BOO Bag. A few activity pages, a treat or two and a kind surprise are plenty. We're multiplying fun here, not assigning Halloween homework.
The Full-Color BOO It Forward Kit
Want the fancy version? Here she is. Flip through the full-color BOO Kit for even more Halloween fun.
This is the gloriously full-color version, designed with absolutely no concern for the emotional wellbeing of your home printer or the current price of ink. You can print it, but please do not send us the bill for the cyan cartridge.
No BOO Budget? You Can Still Play.
Please do not look at your surprise bag and think, "Well, great. Now I have to spend $30."
You don't. Print an activity page. Let the kids color a picture. Pass along a gently loved book. Make friendship bracelets. Add stickers, pencils, homemade art or one of the printable goodies from this page. BOO It Forward is about contagious kindness, not contagious spending.
What Can I Put in a BOO?
Almost anything small and fun. Candy, stickers, glow sticks, pencils, bubbles, fidgets, temporary tattoos, coloring pages, popcorn, a tiny craft, a book your family is ready to pass along, homemade kid art or something printed from this resource kit can all work.
When including food, individually wrapped treats make sharing easier, and adding a few non-food goodies helps more kids join the fun.
The BOO Has Been Spotted
Skelly has been busy. We'll be filling this space with photos from BOO Bag assembly, partner adventures, surprise deliveries and the wonderfully ridiculous journey that got more than 100 bags onto local porches.
These Bags Did Not Fill Themselves
Every treat, toy, activity, offer and tiny Halloween surprise inside our initial BOO Bags exists because a local business or organization said yes when we asked them to help us make October a little more fun for local families.
2026 BOO Sponsors
Gamut Theatre and its Popcorn Hat Players children's theatre program are annual Macaroni KID partners and part of the sponsor-level crew helping make BOO It Forward possible.
A Very Sweet Surprise From Totally Sweet Texas
Every single one of our initial BOO Bags received something extra special this year: a mini sensory kit from Totally Sweet Texas.
This contribution hit especially close to our hearts. Totally Sweet Texas was inspired by the founder's daughter's journey on the autism spectrum and creates sensory kits designed to bring joy, purpose and awareness while encouraging meaningful play for all.
They didn't simply send a handful of goodies for a few lucky bags. They made sure there was a mini sensory kit for every BOO. More than 100 little surprises, tucked into more than 100 bigger surprises, heading out to families across Central PA. That is exactly the kind of generosity this whole project is supposed to multiply.
Meet Totally Sweet TexasOur BOO Bag Crew
A huge thank-you to the businesses, schools, nonprofits and community organizations that contributed treats, activities, prizes, offers and other surprises to help fill the initial BOO Bags.
We're still adding a few final contributors as the last BOO supplies and deliveries are reconciled. If you helped fill a BOO Bag, thank you. This enormous Halloween puzzle had a lot of pieces.
And the Bags Behind the BOO Bags...
A huge thank-you to our friends at WITF Public Media and Pennon Education for once again providing the reusable bags at the heart of BOO It Forward. Because what is a BOO Bag without the actual bag?
Show Us Where the BOO Lands
We started the first bags, but the best part is seeing where they travel next. Share your BOO, your getaway crew, your kids investigating the porch or the surprise you created for somebody else and tag Macaroni KID so we can follow the chain.
The candy will disappear. The stickers will end up somewhere inexplicable. Somebody will probably keep the glow stick until Easter.
But for a minute, somebody gets to open their door and realize another person thought of their family. That's the part we're trying to send all over Central Pennsylvania.
Now go BOO somebody.
BOO It Forward is a Macaroni KID community campaign made possible through paid sponsors, annual partners, promotional partners, nonprofit participants and in-kind contributions. Individual BOO Bag contents vary. Business recognition reflects participation in and support of the 2026 campaign.
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