Halloween candy collected Monday at the office of Dr. David Jones, D.D.S., will soon be on its way to troops overseas thanks to Chapter Three of the Blue Star Mothers.

Now in his third year of participating in the Candy for the Troops Program, Jones and his staff collected 110 pounds of candy from 32 children and one Marine in three hours Monday afternoon. Jones said the program is intended to reduce the amount of sweets in the mouths of children and give it instead to soldiers far from home. The office will continue collecting the candy through Wednesday.

Hilldale Middle School sixth-grader Shelby Lloyd, 11, said she didn’t mind parting with six pounds of candy she got Trick or Treating on Friday.

“It feels very good,” she said after Courtney Skold, who works for Jones, weighed the candy.

Shelby said she spent about two to two and a half hours trick-or-treating. She was a soldier. Her father, Robert Penny, said his father served during the Vietnam War.

Shelby admitted to keeping some of her favorite pieces of candy and said, “Some of the stuff I didn’t like, I put in the bag.”

However, the kids don’t just send their rejected sweets.

“What they bring in will really surprise you,” Jones said. “Over the last two years, we’ve had kids whose parents wouldn’t have let them trick-or-treat be allowed to go out to collect the candy.”

“A lot of parents just donate the candy,” said Debra Jones, who works with her husband.

“This is part of a nationwide program going on from the east coast to the west coast, and from Canada to Mexico,” David Jones said. “The dentists usually send it to California, and it’s shipped out from there. It was my idea to get together with the Blue Star Mothers here in Muskogee. They pack it up and mail it out.”

Jones said his staff was busy Monday putting together “goody bags” containing a light saber toothbrush and a free coupon to one of several local sponsoring restaurants. The children who dropped off candy also got $1 per pound.

So many children were expected that Jones got some help from the Muskogee High School student council, who held up signs along York Street encouraging the great candy drop-off.

Chaplain Carolynn Stephens with the Blue Star Mothers said chapter members will pick up the candy after it is all dropped off at Jones’ office. Based on 2008, they expect a lot of treats this year.

“Last year, we got 300 to 400 pounds of candy,” she said. “We’ll probably ship it out this week.”