Stonyfield Hosting Second Annual Costume Swap

After Stonyfield Farm stopped doing tours several years ago because of a need to use the tour hallway space for production, the business still wanted to maintain a focus on educating its visitors.

According to Diane Coghlan, community education coordinator at Stonyfield, one of those educational focuses is on the idea of "reduce, reuse (and) recycle."

To promote a green initiative, the company implemented a Halloween costume swap event last year to coincide with National Costume Swap Day.

In a nutshell, visitors are asked to bring a gently used costume to the festival, which will take place this year on Oct. 13, to exchange for another costume at the business.

The goal is to keep costumes from being discarded into a landfill, and instead have them reused by others.

The company issued statistics in a release from last year's event:

Stonyfield Farm estimates that if half the Halloween costumes kids wear each year were swapped instead of discarded, it would reduce annual landfill waste by 6,250 tons, approximately the same as 2,500 mid-size cars. 

"We really promote that altruism of people getting out there and doing good for the community," Coghlan said. 

She referenced volunteer days scheduled within the company where employees go and pick up trash along the streets or help work in gardens.

Coghlan said that the visitor center at Stonyfield tries to do four events per year, one per season.

In her role, Coghlan said that she does educational outreach with preschoolers and senior citizens. She also regularly goes to schools to teach kids more about the organic dairy farming industry.

In addition to the costume swapping there will be various Stonyfield trucks as well as a Londonderry Fire Department truck. Yogurt sampling, raffles, trick-or-treat bags, organic farm produce and games will also be available.

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 10 Burton Drive.