Our History

How did all of this come about you ask?

2020

The fundraiser originated in Holly Springs, NC in 2020 with Jeff Robertson placing a St. Jude fundraising sign in his yard after a local TV stationed aired his skeleton Halloween display. This led to visitors talking with Jeff, many impacted by childhood cancer including a 2-year-old little girl currently in treatment. The overwhelming support led Jeff to collect $8,195 that year!

2021

Jeff was phsyched now! He wanted to go bigger and better and took to Facebook in 2021 to launch his campaign. He figured this was a great medium to reach a large number of people and have them donate to a great cause. A partnership with St. Jude was formed, signs were designed, SWAG was put together and BOY was it a busy season and was he ever exhausted! Jeff and the Team raised $151,396.00 that season!

Over 400 homes were placed on the map that year and 1900 members joined the Facebook Group! What a blessing it was to be able to present St. Jude Children’s Hospital with the check below!

2022

This year brought things to a new high! Additional Team members stepped forward to help Jeff on the administration side in an effort to make things easier for the members as well as allow Jeff some time for his family and his own display! Trying to figure out how best to satisfy EVERYONE is not an easy task by no means but the Team makes it look easy (no matter how frantic they are on the back side!). A new website was stood up to help centralize information and make things easier to find. What started as only a couple of pages, not knowing what real value it would bring, has evolved to include photo contests, t-shirt and hoodie sales, sponsor pages, craft tools and more. We are excited to see what the future holds!

Over 625 homes on the map, new sponsors and countless number of members on the Facebook page. Many wishing to carry the campaign beyond the Halloween season into Christmas and the New Year! $214K overall raised for the 2022 season bringing the overall collected total to $371,741.00!

Please take a moment to read from Jeff:

Please, know you all did something incredible this Fall! You should sleep well at night knowing you have contributed greatly to helping children and their families facing the unbelievable challenge of fighting pediatric cancer. You helped not just in raising money but getting the word out about the cause in well over 100 hundred media outlets from the local to national level.

This year, I spammed numerous Facebook groups, equating to thousands of people trying to recruit them to help in this cause and only a small percentage (you) stepped up and said, “I want to make a difference” and you did!

There are many in our group, who may not have achieved the donation results they were trying to achieve. Heck, some may not have received a donation at all, which is frustrating if you spent money to have a sign produced. Please know your time and effort was not a loss.

Danny Thomas once said, “I’d rather have a million people give me a dollar than one give me a million. That way you’ve got a million people involved.” You were involved in getting the word out to your neighbors, community, friends and family about St. Jude and it will pay dividends without a doubt.

I am proud of everyone’s ingenuity trying to find creative ways to raise donations. I am proud of how we worked together as a team and encouraged each other in our group without drama or other distractions.

I hope to see all of you next year as we move to hit half a million raised by our 4th Halloween!

Way ahead:

For those that want to continue to fundraise through the holidays the QR code will work until end of July 2023.

Keep your sign if you want to reuse it for next year. We will have to cover it with a new QR code.

Those that won an award I’ll get in touch with you on Messenger.

Check back in on our website and Facebook group in July/August as we get ready for breaking half a million!

2023

Yet another banner year was had in 2023! New records set and another huge finish to the year. Additional details to follow

Click here to download the sign PDF as well as some instructions for placing your order.

2024

681 homes on the map (another record set), new sponsors and countless number of members on the Facebook page. Not only in the U.S. but world wide! Including all shirt sales, our overall total for the year was $268,943 leaving us only $93,671 to surpass ONE MILLION DOLLARS !!!

While our success and strength are in our numbers with hundreds of our teammates that raise tens and a few hundred dollars that add up to a staggering total, I do want to recognize the top 3 team fundraisers for this year that went above and beyond: