Thread: My haunted house is for a very good cause

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Everyone!!!
For many years I enjoyed building props and hosting a haunted house in my garage.
Year after year I added more and more props.
Two years ago I was approached by my neighborhood to host the haunted house in our clubhouse.
I was more than happy to do this but there is more.
We decided as a neighborhood to sponsor a charity.
This will be our third year raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Center.
Now I have an even bigger reason to create new props than for just showing off my creativity.
Every year it gets bigger and bigger and this year I am so excited.

I urge everyone to use your creativity for a good cause.
You will surprised how good you feel when you send a huge check to help someone.
We charged a dollar for entrance and raised about $1500 dollars last year.
Tell St. Judes that Bernie sent you.

Have fun this year everyone. I know it is time to start our haunted houses.


YouTube - Chestnut Hill Haunted House 08 Vid 1

YouTube - Chestnut Hill Haunted House 08 Vid 2

I started collecting money for Make A Wish Foundation. I've volunteered for them for years, but now I hope to raise enough money, in time, to grant a wish each year. It'll take some time to build up, but with this year's media exposure, I'm hoping we can come very close to that goal. We'll see! Congrats on taking your passion to a new level!

Good for you two!

Put a few volunteer actors in there for some more scares and you can up the admission charge. The word gets around about how great it is, one dollar becomes two and you just doubled the size of your contribution.

It's great when we can use our hobby to help good causes, and I think the idea of using a Halloween haunt to help less fortunate children, who may never get to experiencing the joys of TOT'ing, or the thrills of a haunted house is a very approprite thing to do.
It also helps to show us haunt folk in a good light, as there are still some around who think of us as somewhat eccentric, at best.
I never charge entry to my haunt, but somebody has suggested that I advertise some of my props for sale on Halloween night and donate the proceeds to a local charity. That way, I solve my storage problems, get to make new props for next year and possibly change the haunt theme as well as helping a worthwhile cause.

I would encourage everyone to do whatever they can to support local charity groups.

It doesn't even have to be as big as charging and donating.

My traveling lab setup is for a local school for disadvantaged kids, sure, and we raise a bit of cash with it. However, I've also been using it to teach a local scout troop about engineering. I also open the yard to a special needs school where kids are epileptic, and typically have to avoid haunts due to safety precautions. Bringing Halloween to kids that otherwise wouldn't know it.

I'm actually moving my haunt from my home to a nearby town to help Habitat for Humanity. We're going to be setting up the haunt at their location for a fund raising effort.

The Haunt we have is for or DARE/GREAT programs in our local grade and Jr high schools... The programs are: Drug Awareness Resistance Education and Gang Resistance Education and Training We've had a haunt for 6 years now and are slowly building up our inventory!!! It gets better every year and I LOVE being able to help with this. ( I cant wait every year to plan for the next year.)

So, cudos to all that can use their talents for good causes !!!

Oh and Hauntcrazy..... love your haunt ! Really like that you don't need so many people to help put it on..

We end up haveing about 25-30 actors in our haunt.. Gets hard to find volunteers!!!

Great haunt and it's wonderful that you do that for charity. LOVE the mirror!

Great feedback everyone!!!
Let's hear more.
This really is what makes it fun.
Knowing that we are doing something good.

Lynn
I do have volunteers.
I have to give credit where credit is due.
No, I don' have that many actors. I have four or five people, including myself, that work inside the haunt. I also have a dozen people that help setup and breakdown. I also let many of the neighborhood kids dress up as spooks inside and outside. The videos really don't show the haunt during working hours. They only show it without any actors at all.
This year I will walk through with other people walking through and capture some of the scared people.

Note:
This year I will be campaigning for sponsers. Last year we made T-Shirts and sold them. This year we will do the T-Shirts again but get sponsors to pay for their name on the back of the T-Shirt.
$50 to get your company name on the T-Shirt.
Also thinking of getting local news coverage. I have a highschool buddy that is a sportscaster here in Atlanta. Have to use your networking skills you know.

Another note:
Not everyone has good intentions at haunted houses.
For the past two years, we have a police presence just in case.
Not that I don't trust teenagers, but , you never know.
Besides, teenagers are absolutely the most fun to scare.
They act like everything is sooooo dumb!!
Jump out at them from a corner and they freak!