Spooktacular fundraising night – The Mortlock’s Halloween 2018

For the past ten years I and my husband Jason have decorated our house up for Halloween to give the children in the area a frightfully good scary night.

However over the past five years we decided to also help fund raise money for charities.  This year we helped to raise funds for The Maypole Project.

The Maypole Project

The Maypole Project aims to relieve and help preserve the mental and physical well-being of children and young people who have complex medical needs and disabilities and to support their family members as well as others who are affected by their suffering and in certain cases, bereavement.

They aim to educate, support and preserve the mental and physical well-being of carers and professionals working with such families and help them with issues of loss and bereavement.

Sadly every year, 12 to 17 of every 10,000 children are diagnosed with an illness and/or disability that threatens or shortens life, 65% of these families will need to seek professional support.  The diagnosis itself is life-shattering and stressful for each and every family member.

They want all families who have a child with a complex medical illness to have access to a Maypole Project Support Worker at their time of need.

How we helped raise funds for The Maypole Project

Usually we have always just asked for donations however as people tend not to carry money with them anymore or even give any money unless there was something they could potentially get out of it.  So we decided to hold a fun raffle this year.  Participants got to draw from a mini coffin a piece of paper saying and the word loser or the name of the prize, if your lucky enough to win will be on it..

A number of companies whom I have blogged for before or helped out in other ways helped contribute towards the raffle.

So a massive thank you to:

B-Bakery (afternoon tea for two)
clueQuest (escape room game)
Donut Bouquets (donuts)
GoBoat (1 hr ride on a GoBoat)
The London Bridge Experience & London Tombs (History adventure followed by a horror experience for 4)
Pasta Evenglists (pasta feast)
Thames Rockets (rib ride along Thames for 4)
The Big London Bake (Baking class for 2)
Up at the O2 (walk over the O2 for 2)

On the night we managed to raise an astounding £228.47 for The Maypole Project.

So thank you to all that contributed, donated and entered the raffle. 

I will now tell you more about our Mortlock’s Halloween pop-up of 2018.

The Mortlock’s Halloween pop-up 2018

“Every town has an Elm Street” and annually on Halloween my street, well my house turns into one.

Treats and cakes

Many days beforehand though me and my family we get stuffing treat bags and baking many ghoulish cakes take place.

Here are the ghoulish cake pops and cupcakes.

Then time to dress ourselves up. 

This year I decided to dress as yet another murdering nurse but this time with a different more grey war time nurses uniform and Jason wore newer LED gloves and his Purge mask from last year.  

With my helpers on the night, Lottie my niece who wore a Ghostbusters outfit and my friend Steve turned himself into a werewolf.  

Now before the darkness creeps in and madness takes its toll it was time for a quick selfie with Mr Bones in the selfie corner.

Time was nearly upon us, listen closely….. (not for very much longer) but they are here a gang of trick or treaters followed on by more and more. 

The grim reaper starts flapping his wings, the bat starts squealing, the witch cackling, spiders scurry, zombies come alive, foggy mist creeps everywhere and the ghost comes out jumping with blood-curdling screams happening everywhere giving all the children a hair-raising fright and even making some cowardly run off in terror.  

“It’s Halloween, everyone’s entitled to one good scare.” 

Even a dog got involved and was dressed up.

Plus many people entered the raffle on the night.  Steve was in fact very lucky enough to even win one of the prizes on the night, congrats to him.

End of night

When the clock struck 8.30pm it was then time to pack up which is the worst moment for me as I can’t tell the fake spiders from the real in the dark “It’s Alive! It’s Alive!” and I hate spiders.

The night went down a storm with all the kids in the neighbourhood loving it. Everyone was dressed up in full glory from ghosts to witch’s.

This year in total we had 145 kids come knocking (95 last year) so that is a massive turn out.  Everyone had a spookily good time and we managed to help raise £228.47 for The Maypole Project via our fundraising raffle.

“We all go a little mad sometimes… Haven’t you?”