ELYRIA - After sliding three crisp dollar bills into his pocket, 9-year-old Stephan Smith didn’t hesitate when asked whether parting with his well-earned Halloween candy was hard.

“No,” was his simple response. “Because I get to send it to the troops.”

The three pounds of candy Stephan handed over to Elyria dentist Scott Nagy will be sent directly to U.S. troops serving overseas.

It’s the third year Nagy has hosted the candy buyback program at his office on the corner of Gulf Road and Ohio Street.

Once the kids filed into the dentist office lobby, had their bags of goodies weighed by a dental hygienist dressed as an evil tooth fairy, they collected their loot and walked out to the parking lot where an entire party was waiting for them complete with a live band, free hot dogs and popcorn and a knee-high remote control LifeCare car.

“This has just grown so much, the community really likes it,” Nagy said.

He never expected the 200 kids who walked into his office that first year, providing 300 pounds of candy for the troops, and was bowled over when the number of kids doubled the next year, along with double the amount of candy. He expected 1,000 pounds Friday night.

He pays $1 a pound for the sweet stuff and has the kids write a greeting card to the soldiers to be sent along with the chocolate bars and sugary treats that the men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq could normally only dream of.

Nagy got the idea to do the buyback after attending a dental conference where someone brought it up. He put up fliers in the community a few days before, thinking a few kids would stroll through and he’d tell them about the importance of brushing their teeth and about overall health, but then an elderly woman walked in a few days before the event and changed everything.

“She said her husband was a Marine and he died a few months before. She told me, ‘He’d be really proud of what you are doing,’ and that just did it. From that moment on that became a big reason why we were doing this.”

The community response has been “overwhelming,” he said.

People donate candy days before his buyback event. As Nagy’s staff - who volunteer to help - began filling up a back room with boxes of candy, a representative from Macy’s dropped off 45 pounds the store had been collecting from customers the last few days.

“Thank you for doing what you do,” the representative said as he walked out of the office.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Nagy said. “That’s pure community stepping up to just do something. It’s so amazing.”

He said he’s received positive feedback from troops overseas and even a patient of his who is a former military man who worked as a civilian doing military contract work.

“He said they really love it over there and to ‘keep it up,’ ” he said.

In addition to the troops, Nagy also holds a 50/50 raffle for Lorain County Children Services and the Neighborhood House Association. He also held a free raffle for an iPod Nano and a raffle for $1,000 for patients whose names were placed in a jar upon every visit.

But despite all the good it does, how do kids continue to reconcile giving up their candy each year?

“I gave the ones I didn’t want,” said a very honest Michael Peck, 9. “Then it was easy.”

Contact Adam Wright at 329-7155 or awright@chroniclet.com.

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