Submitted –
Sandpiper Sanitarium for Canuck Place Children’s Hospice
Sandpiper Sanitarium in Abbotsford BC will open its creaky doors for the 3rd year in a row on Thursday October 29th from 6-9pm, and will run for 3 nights, with all proceeds going to Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Abbotsford. We are currently looking for volunteers and now accepting donations for the charity. Any mention about this event is appreciated as it raises more donations to this worthy charity.
How did this wickedly fun event get started you ask?….
Sandpiper Sanitarium started out in Langley, BC, as a small graveyard scene and acouple of pumpkin twinkle lights. Taking hints from the popular Halloween episodes from “Roseanne”; We would come around the corner, as the kids said “Trick or Treat”, with a chainsaw or other weapon and scare the people visiting. It turns out the parents were the easiest to frighten. It was a great laugh.
After being in Abbotsford for afew years, the props and decorations seem to get larger and larger. Donations of more costumes and decor from family and friends piled in over the years. In 2013, we ran out of space in the front yard and decided to use the garage so the animatronics wouldnt get wet from the weather. Creativity took over and it ended up resembling a zombie hospital, so we just kept going with that theme.
On that Halloween night, our neighbours were amazed at what we had accomplished. Our family members came over to help scare inside the “hospital” dressed as frightening nurses and doctors . Word of mouth got out quickly and we soon had a traffic jam in from of our yard and down the street. With the help of our family, we able to provide free entertainment and alot of scares to every visitor. Lots of little ones visited the graveyard and got there candies, but even more took the chance of entering the Sanitarium. We even over heard acouple of visitors having to go home to change their wet pants. We ran out of candy at 700 kids and had to run to the store to buy out the rest of the shelves. Our neighbours came over and said “We have to help you do this next year!” From then on, we knew we had something special.
The Hogarths/Ruppels and The Traffords, with the help of our neighbours The Langtons started brain storming the very next day. Turns out our neighbour previously worked on movie set design! We wanted to make it bigger and scarier. We decided to start asking for donations for a worthy cause and choose “Canuck Place Childrens Hospice” as our charity to donate to. Construction started July 2014, on the 20×25 foot extention off the garage and ideas of scare tactics were a plenty. Children in the neighbourhood had so much antisipation to Halloween seeing the setup months before. Businesses were jumping on board to support our cause, posters were hung, and we even had Shaw TV film a Halloween episode before we opened our doors. We made sure to have parking from the school behind our house and traffic patrol, and of course, lots of extra candy. Everything came together so well, thanks to the time and generousity of everyone who helped. That year, Halloween 2014, we were open for 3 nights and had over 1700 spectators. We raised close to $3700.00 for Canuck Place. And had ALOT of fun.
We hope that you will join us this year. We are planning a fun event by donation that will be sure to scare the daylights out of you for a great cause.
Little ones are welcome in the graveyard, but we recommend age 8+ inside the Sanitarium. Please no pets, people with heart condition/strokes, or pregnant woman. We have added alot of new scares for the returning visitor and are keeping the crowd favorites. We will have goodies from our sponsors, Tim Horton’s and Subway, to purchase with proceeds going to charity, and trick or treat bags nightly. TJX, Club 16, and Canucks Place have donated a spooktacular Canuck’s Prize Pack to be raffled off as well.
We are always looking for help with building/decorating, acting, pre-donations, and sponsors… if you are interested, please contact us on our website www.abbotsfordhauntedhouse.com
Wishing you and yours a safe and scary Halloween!
Courtney Hogarth-Trafford