MILWAUKEE — On Halloween, a Milwaukee neighbor gave trick-or-treaters an unlikely choice... take a full-size candy bar or a potato. Just a regular uncooked potato.
In the end, Sarah Ross gave out 46 potatoes to crazy for taters trick-or-treaters. They live in the Saveland Park neighborhood which is right next to Bay View.
“There's one really really young kid right away that saw it, just picked it up, gasped, and said I got a potato!" Ross said.
One group of teenage kids even started yelling 'potato gang' around the neighborhood they were so excited about the spuds next to their milk duds.
“Throughout the neighborhood, I think they were kind of like potato evangelists. They were spreading the good word, and I think that’s really when it kind of became a thing," Ross said.
Ross just did it to be fun, weird, and different. There was no message behind it. Ross saw a post on Facebook that someone did it in 2021, so they wanted to do it.
"I think a lot of people hadn’t seen a potato in a Halloween candy basket, and that was the exciting factor of it was - that it was weird," Ross said.
They posted live commentary on their Facebook page giving people updates as the night went on. The post was shared thousands of times and picked up by publications across the country.
"George Takei shared it. That was a big one for me because I've been a Trekkie my whole life," Ross said.
They aren't sure if they will be the potato house again in 2023; however, there is a little bit of pressure to live up to the reputation they inadvertently built for themselves.
