WESTFIELD — As the city’s children prepare for Halloween, they are invited to visit the Elks Lodge tonight for the third annual trick-or-treating sponsored by lodge members.

Scheduled to begin after the end of the downtown party coordinated by the Boys & Girls Club, lodge members will wait after 5 p.m. in their Washington Street parking lot with decorated vehicles and threat supplies.

For decades, the Elks sponsored a rag parade the Friday night before Halloween and costumed children and their adults paraded through the city’s downtown. In recent years, security concerns have put an end to this tradition. For two years, the Elks held a Saturday noon parade, but the turnout was disappointing and the event was a pale shadow of the previous festivities. The members of the lodge therefore sought an alternative.

The result was the Rag Shag Trunk-or-Treat at the lodge.

“The Elks have a mission to serve the community and we are pleased to be able to do so,” said Milt Vazquez, exalted leader of the Westfield-West Springfield Elks Lodge.

In addition to handing out candy, some trunk hosts will engage children in simple games and coloring books. Children will receive a raffle ticket upon arrival at the lodge and, in a decades-old tradition, a boy and a girl will leave with a new bike.

Adults accompanying children will have the opportunity to learn more about the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and programs offered at the local lodge.