Have you seen the lollipops people make to put in their yards around Christmas time?
They use a styrofoam flat circle, paint and/ or cover it with cellophane paper, stick in a dowel and you can put it on a board or in a weighted pail for back of the stage decoration. 3 coming out of a pail would look cute. They can stand about 4 feet high, maybe higher.

Is there a baton that you can hang things on? Hang big cardboard cut-outs of candy!

These two websites have pictures and tutorials on how to make candy out of pool noodles. Super Cute. Could also do some big ice cream cones and candies etc. out of foam boards.

theseasonalhome.com . . .

www.youtube.com . . .

Failing that go to your local furniture store and ask if they'll give you some of their enormous cardboard packing boxes, most of the time they'll give them to you for free so they don't have to pay the disposal costs.

Get some paints, Walmart do some really good acrylics but also check your dollar store (mine sometimes gets them in too and they're even cheaper) and get creative this way your scenery is only as limited as your imagination and I bet you have a few arty parents or students who would like to help out. We did this last year, our parents painted it all, it looked amazing and best of all it cost next to nothing!