| Updated: 10/31/2012 5:48 pm |
Published: 10/31/2012 4:02 pm
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There is one home in Tulsa that's hard to miss during major holidays and the tradition goes back nearly four decades.
But this Halloween is a little more special at Cheyenne and 16th street, with a haunted house for a good cause.
There are mummies and witches, everything the community has come to expect from the haunted house in downtown Tulsa.
"It means a lot of good memories for me because there’s nothing more fun than watching amazement and wonder and awe in people's faces," said Homeowner Evelyn Burns.
Her home has not only attracted the young but the young at heart.
"Kind of want to have my trick or treat bag in hand," said Wendy Mullin.
She works downtown and has come to see the home for the past three years.
39 years ago, Burns wanted a safe place for her kids and there friends could celebrate the Halloween spirit.
"I believe in celebrating the holidays,” Burns told FOX23. “Life is too short and there's too much uncertainty, there's too much misery."
She’s seen the misery in people who go hungry across Tulsa. This is the first year the haunted house was built around her entire home (it used to be only in the front yard, it now extends to the back). It will also be the first time she collects donations for the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.
"I don't think in this day and age there's anything more personal and more loving than to feed another person," she said.
Burns experienced that struggle first hand as a single mother trying to feed two boys.
"There are times when you really have to wonder, "How are you going to stretch that dollar? How are you going to feed those kids? By god's grace I did," said the mother of two.
The same way she made it, Burns is hoping to help others.
She says the best returns is seeing the joy or scare the kids and adults get touring her haunted house.
"They love this alien and love to pull his mask off. But it scares them to death when they do because when you lift his mask there's a woman underneath," she said.
Burns will keep her haunted house open until Monday. She's hoping that will give her enough time to collect enough can food for the food bank.
