Mike Wolanin | The Republic Sara Elifritz’s poses for a photo outside her home on Parkside Drive in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. Elifritz puts up spooky decorations every Halloween to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The children helped her put up the decorations this year.
A Columbus resident is once again putting on a frightful fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
Sara Elifritz of 2043 Parkside Drive is participating in a nationwide effort known as “Skeletons for St. Jude,” where participants use Halloween and holiday displays to raise funds for the research hospital.
Elifritz had raised about $440, or about 20% of her $2,000 goal so far. Her 2022 campaign raised $2,066 in donations, which was more than double her $1,000 goal.
In addition to aiming higher this year, Elifritz has added some new creatures to her display.
“I have this ‘predator of the night’, which is kind of half-human, half-bat,” she said. “And I have a 12-foot ghost that glows a blue color. And then I also got this arch, it’s stacked skulls making an archway. And in that, I have a screen, so I’m doing like a hologram projection on the screen that looks really neat. So sometimes it’s dancing skeletons, sometimes it’s spooky skeletons, there’s a rock band, a skeleton that plays the organ, so it just kind of rotates through some different little clips.”
She expects to leave the display up for the first weekend after Halloween and then begin taking it down.
Skeletons for St. Jude began in 2020 with the Robertson family of Holly Springs, North Carolina, who decided to place a St. Jude fundraising sign in their yard after a local TV station aired footage of their skeleton Halloween display.
“After generating $8,200, in a few short weeks, and meeting several families impacted by childhood cancer, the Robertsons were moved to turn the fundraiser into an annual event,” according to Skeletons for St. Jude.
The now-nationwide campaign hopes to raise over $100,000 during the 2023 Halloween and holiday seasons and bring its total amount raised to half a million dollars. Organizers also hope to see over 1,000 homes participate this year.
Elifritz has been part of the effort since 2021.
This year, she got a bit of help with her display from some neighborhood children.
Elifritz explained that one of the kids who visits her house every day — and calls it the “Halloween party house” — wanted to help put up a giant spider that goes with the display, so they worked together to attach the legs.
Later on, when she saw some other kids checking out the display and the spider in particular, Elifritz asked if they wanted to help put out some smaller spiders on the netting around the big one.
“We went through probably 100 spiders, and they were just like little machines, putting these spiders on the webs,” Elifritz said. “But we had a lot of fun putting that together, together. So it’s been kind of a community project. There were some other kids while were doing it that walked by, and so they stopped and put on a couple. But lots of kids are coming by here pretty regularly, and so it’s been kind of fun to watch them and see it through their eyes.”
