[movieman64]

My friend Bill and I help put together a haunted house every year. We donate part of the money to the PTO, Youth League, and the HS Drama Club in return for their helping out. It is a ton of work! and we start planning right after the first of the year. We don't charge an admission fee but we do ask for donations. Most people do give $2-$3 bucks or more. The PTO and Youth league, and drama club set up concessions and help run the props or be actors. Each night we pool the money and split it equally. Last year we cleared almost $1500 the weekend before Halloween, it was our best year to date.

We got a write up in the paper last year, and I think that probably helped a lot, but word-of-mouth is the best advertisement. I talked to the editor of the paper again this year and told him about running a story of how while working on the haunt we have had a lot of strange goings on, noises, cold chills, stuff being moved, lights left on that sort of stuff. One of the kids who helps on the high school paper is going to write it, and they are going to publish it in the school paper. The local paper wants to take pictures of some of the actors in costume and show us presenting checks to the PTO/Youth league, etc...

We have only one real problem. There is a relatively small college in our area, (about 3,000 students) and some of them will show up, some what inebriated, (which itself is not the problem) but they don't usually donate any money, and we have had them break, and even steal some of the props. I hoping to talk to the University's paper about running a story about our haunt and the charity aspect of it, to hopefully get a little more donations from the students as they come thru.

One of the best parts is the party we have the weekend after Halloween, we decorate the place with a lot of the props, and fog and we all have a really good time.