Haunt on Harborton: Jacksonville Halloween display raises money for a good cause
Ashley Thomas already has plans for the week after Halloween — she'll be packing up the witches, monsters and ghosts now populating her Jacksonville front yard, shopping for discounted decorations for next year and starting work on the Christmas display.
Her yard, on a cul-de-sac at 12986 Harborton Drive off Hodges Boulevard, is jammed with giant skeletons, black cats, stacks of skulls, dinosaur skeletons, tombstones, mummies, scarecrows, pumpkins, a giant disembodied hand and a 10-foot-tall animated witch that speaks with a Southern accent. A live cat named Fairy weaves through the displays and greets visitors from behind a cemetery fence that separates the madness from the street.
The Haunt on Harborton has its own Facebook page. It's one of about 30 Florida homes participating in a nationwide program called Skeletons for St. Jude, raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., to help families impacted by childhood cancer. It started in 2020 with a North Carolina display that raised more than $8,000.
By the next year, more than 400 homes were involved, raising $150,000 in donations. About 600 signed up last year, bringing in another $214,000. Donations this year have already pushed the four-year total above $500,000.
Skeletons for St. Jude doesn't track how much money each individual house raises, so Thomas doesn't know how much money her display has raised in the two years she's been involved. Anyone can donate through the fundraising.stjude.org site.
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Thomas is a former kindergarten teacher and has dealt with cases of childhood cancer in the past, so she was happy to sign up for the Skeletons for St. Jude program. "I just love the cause," she said. I'm already decorating, so it just made sense. It's a cause that's worth fighting for."
She adds a couple of pieces to the display every year, mostly at the post-Halloween sales, so the layout has to change every year to make room for new additions. Thomas said she spent nearly a week arranging pieces to get things just right, with the driveway dividing the "spooky side" from the "cutesy side," which has a lighted Mickey Mouse, an inflatable Olaf holding a pumpkin and other family-friendly items.
Thomas said she's running out of room in the yard. She had to move some of the skeletons to the roof of the house this year. "That's why I have to be real picky about what we get."
She retires pieces when they get tattered or sun-faded, but some are too good to throw away. An animated fortune teller display is one of her oldest pieces and has been repaired with plastic trash bags where fabric has decayed. You have to jiggle it a bit to get it to work, but it will still tell your fortune.
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She long ago ran out of room to store all of the Halloween displays, so she now rents a Pod storage container. When she's ready to start decorating, she gives them a call and they drop the Pod in her driveway, then pick it up when it's empty.
The display is a big hit with neighbors. A week before Halloween, little kids in matching pajamas gaped at the display from the street and a steady stream of cars and golf carts slowly passed. On Halloween night, Thomas said, when she fires up the fog machine and puts on her witch costume, the street becomes impassable. "You wouldn't be able to drive a vehicle down here," she said.
Last Halloween, she discovered that trick-or-treaters were more interested in the displays than the treats. She offered a choice of lollipops, full-sized candy bars and potatoes and was surprised to see that the candy bars were the least popular.
She'll start tearing it down and packing up the Pod right after Halloween. "It comes down immediately," she said. "We have to start Christmas."
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville family turns Halloween display into cancer fundraiser
