EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a follow-up to a story on the NCS 5 Good Things podcast. For extra uplifting tales like this one, pay attention wherever you get your podcasts — new episodes drop each Saturday.
Jeff Robertson didn’t take Halloween decorations significantly till 2020, when he wished to make his kids smile through the pandemic.
Every 12 months since, his yard in Holly Springs, North Carolina — and lots of extra throughout the nation –— has been filled with plastic skeletons of all sizes for a haunting however heartwarming trigger, elevating more than $1 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
That first 12 months, with his home windows boarded up, the show’s theme was a home underneath assault by what Robertson referred to as a “skeleton army” scaling the partitions.
When a native information crew lined it, the 54-year-old father of two and Army veteran noticed a probability to do greater than entertain.
“I asked my kids how we could use that attention to help others,” he informed NCS. “My son and daughter said, ‘Hey, let’s help St. Jude. We want to help sick children get out of the hospital so they can see all these neat Halloween decorations.’”
So the household printed a easy signal on their entrance yard that stated partly: If you want what you see, be at liberty to donate to St. Jude – a main kids’s hospital for kids with cancer and different ailments.
Within days, Robertson stated a automobile pulled up with an emotional couple and their younger daughter within the backseat. The tearful father informed Robertson that they’re a St. Jude household and wished to thank him for elevating cash for pay for therapy for households like them.
Robertson didn’t get their names and so they by no means noticed one another once more. But that encounter modified every thing for him.
“I’d been looking for purpose after retiring from the service,” he stated. “This little girl was going through such a tough time, but she saw these goofy plastic skeletons in my yard, it put her in an awesome place.”
The household raised over $8,000 in 2020 – and the following 12 months, Robertson created a Facebook group referred to as Skeletons for St. Jude to unfold the thought nationwide.
This spooky season, the group has greater than 5,000 members, and over 1,000 accomplice properties throughout the nation have joined the trigger and raised funds. On October 21, they formally hit the $1 million mark.
Robertson’s neighborhood in North Carolina appears ahead to his epic show yearly with scores of holiday makers stopping by each day all month lengthy to soak within the skeleton spectacle.
Massive Halloween show helps elevate over $1M for charity
It takes Robertson a complete 12 months to plan the theme and construct new props. He’s amassed 100 or so toy skeletons that he retains in storage, and he provides onto the show each day till Halloween — so there’s at all times one thing new for guests to see.
This October, skeletons are crusing on a 25-foot phantom pirate ship that Robertson has positioned so it seems to have crashed by means of the primary and second tales of his home.
“The real focus isn’t on me,” Robertson stated. “It’s on the thousands of people giving five or ten dollars here and there. That’s what made this a success.”
Robertson is grateful understanding this cash will assist households concentrate on getting their kids higher. And he says these households are motivating him to lift one other $1 million in half the time.
Correction:
A earlier model of this text incorrectly recognized the army department during which Jeff Robertson served.