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OPINION

Charity haunts are just better

Visitors stand in line to enter the Mt. Healthy Haunted House, which offers a different experience from a traditional haunted house.
Visitors stand in line to enter the Mt. Healthy Haunted House, which offers a different experience from a traditional haunted house.

As a veteran actor, I have spent almost the entirety of my life being immersed behind the scenes of Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall, located in Mt. Healthy, Ohio. From starting at just 10 years old, I have been learning the ins and outs of this haunted house for nearly a decade.

On average, each year we have around 40-50 volunteers that range from children as young as 10 years old to retired adults. All dedicate many hours of their personal time toward Hall’s construction and success. However, this dedication comes without a profit; Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall is a charity haunted house, and not a single one of the volunteers makes a penny.

The Hall was founded on making a difference in our community and we still strive to do so today. Since opening in 1990, we have been donating to Mt. Healthy food pantry. Over the past decade, even with the pandemic, we have collected 14,831 canned food goods donations. Just last year Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall brought in 1,855 donations, the highest received to date. I got these numbers from Andy Schehr who has been a part of the Hall since opening.

Our donation count is thanks to, on top of having an already significantly low price, the discount customers are given when they bring donations. Our normal price with no donation sits at $12, and a donation grants you a discount of $2; a steal when most surrounding haunts charge a minimum of $20. In addition to this, the Hall has a relatively short wait time.

Being a charity haunt held in a multipurpose building also means that each year, countless hours of construction are torn down and rebuilt again the following Halloween season.

Despite this, the Hall is brought together every year by a core group of veterans; Andy Schehr, Mary and Travis Dietrich, Eric Stewerf, Matt Stentz and Betty Hancock just to name a few. Just last year alone, I put in 70 hours of my own time attending committee meetings, working on construction and deconstruction, and acting within Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall. Despite the long hours, it is something I look forward to every year.

The exciting part though, is we are able to always have a new theme with new creative scenes, which are rooms with different decorations alluding to the theme as a whole. Although our traditional characters, such as Dracula and Bug Boy, stay the same, we make sure to put a new twist on them relating to that year’s theme.

Competitors, on the other hand, do not drastically change their scenes each year. They may add on to existing ones, but they do not go through the work to come up with new scene ideas every year. Which is a shame because no two experiences at our haunt are the same. If you go through the Hall on opening night and then again on closing night, it will be a completely different experience.

Additionally, Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall does not use or have access to expensive animatronics to scare customers, preferring to rely on real actors because we can adapt to each group of customers and change the experience each night.

They also are able to dress according to that year's theme. For example, this year our theme is Mt. Healthy General Hospital, and the Hall has catered our actors and traditional scenes to have a hospital-like twist. 

Our actors also add to the fun and thrill of running the haunt. Every night before everyone goes to their respective scenes and jobs, we chant “We may not be the biggest, but we certainly are the best!” This tradition has carried on year after year. 

While we do not have as many visitors as a typical haunted house, we make more of a difference in our community than any other Halloween attraction in the area with our unique, personal and charitable twist on a haunt.

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Through word of mouth and the loyalty of customers who come year after year, the community at Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall is like no other. Our charity haunt has also become a tradition for many families in the Cincinnati area and beyond.

If you are looking for a fun but cheap good scare, I highly recommend Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall. Charity haunts are just better.

gowansj@miamioh.edu

Jamie Gowans is a first-year student in the Farmer School of Business. She is a marketing major with a history minor. This is her first year writing for The Miami Student and she is also involved in the ping pong club.




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