Boo Bash organizer Christyna Belden hopes the event will become an annual tradition for families in Astoria.

An Astoria apartment complex will hold its first Halloween Boo Bash Saturday night, an event it hopes will grow to become an annual tradition for the entire city.

The Emerald Heights event will include a hay maze, fog machines, costume competitions, games and prizes.

To embrace social distancing, decorated slides will shoot candy into kids’ trick-or-treat buckets. Sugar-free candy options will also be available. The entrance to the event will be a fog-filled maze, designed to keep participants more than 6 feet apart.

The event will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday at 1 Emerald Dr. in Astoria.

Christyna Belden, the community manager for Emerald Heights apartment complex, has been putting Halloween events together for seven years in the Willamette Valley. Belden is excited to introduce this tradition to the Astoria community. The Boo Bash will be open to all, not just residents of the apartment.

The event’s focus will be a costume contest, an event that Astoria Police Officer Sam Whisler helped plan early this summer. Whisler unexpectedly died of natural causes in July at the age of 26.

While he served on the costume planning committee for the event Whisler picked a fairy tale category for the contest lineup. Participants can also choose to compete in the spooky or funny costume categories.

“He was an absolute joy who cared about the community,” Belden said.

Belden said she and Whisler shared a love of community and helping others. The Boo Bash will also serve as a fundraiser for Whisler’s family. A donation station will be set up to benefit his wife and kids.

To honor Whisler, the Emerald Heights staff will dress in an “Alice in Wonderland” theme.

Boo Bash games will include a magnetic fishing game, wooden egg toss and a ring toss with a witches’ hat and a blow-up giant tarantula.

The Boo Bash is also the start of the apartment’s “Caught Ya” program. The initiative aims to catch kids doing something nice, and reward them with prizes.

Aside from the Halloween program, Emerald Heights provides donated school supplies to children and encourages community members and businesses to donate as well.

“We give residents the opportunity to not just be neighbors, but friends and family. It stops being an apartment, and starts being a home,” Belden said.