COAL MOUNTAIN — Children and their parents can get a lesson in safety and some candy too Saturday as Forsyth County holds its fifth annual Trunk or Treat safety event at Coal Mountain Park.

Set for 6 to 9 p.m., the festivities include a bean bag toss, haunted maze, face painting and trick or treating.

Admission is one bag of candy per family, and the local chapter of the American Red Cross, Safe Kids Forsyth and various local businesses are sponsoring the vehicle “trunks” where kids can stop for candy.

In a statement, Forsyth County Fire Chief Danny Bowman described Trunk or Treat as a “great opportunity to share with families important safety information” surrounding activities for Halloween, which this year falls on a Friday.

“[The local] public safety personnel pride themselves on providing engaging ways to promote safety to our community’s youth,” he said.

Fire Division Chief Jason Shivers added that the “whole point of the event is to provide a fall/Halloween-like event that is public safety related for the community.”

“You sponsor a trunk with some kind of message or event … and the children can come by and, of course, get treats and candies,” he said.

The event also aims to teach parents and children safe practices for trick-or-treating in the coming week, including eating only “store-bought, identifiably commercially available candy.”

“Never trick or treat alone, you always want to be in a crowd with adult supervision,” Shivers said. “Wear bright-colored, reflective clothing, travel in groups. [And] always have the parents inspect the candy and make sure before the children consume it.”

The event also stresses avoiding strangers while trick or treating.

“The awareness of strangers is always important,” Shivers said. “The stranger-danger concept, we want to continue to drive that home to our community children, being aware of strangers.”

The overall message is to have a fun Halloween, and know how to keep safe.

“It gives the public safety agencies a chance to continue to push out our message on safety,” Shivers said. “The basic things that are really quite common sense approaches to Halloween safety.”