ABOUT THE HAUNTS AGAINST HUNGER TEAM
While many of us are enjoying Halloween, there are those who are just trying to find their next meals.
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In 2010, 17.2 million, in other words 14.5 percent, of American households (approximately one in seven) were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States
(Coleman-Jensen 2011, p. v.).

Many yard haunts, haunted attractions, and community events have become well-known in their communities and traditions for celebration on an annual basis. What we have been doing is using this opportunity to set up "Haunts Against Hunger" food drives to collect non-perishable food items to help stock the shelves of local food pantries. Here is our story...
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Thom Kramer, whose father Ken was a Park Forest trustee for many years visited Charles and Kim's house during Halloween. The Schaefer's have always decorated their lawn full of scary Halloween characters on Shabbona Street in Park Forest. Thom is a founder of "Haunts Against Hunger," a national organization. It started as a place for the Schaefer's to collect non-perishable items but then that all changed very quickly.
Vernice Warren, the PTO president at Talala decided to take the HAH concept a bit further by aiming another direction to get more food for the pantry.
Haunts Against Hunger in Park Forest started 8 years ago in 2008 as a community giving program at Talala Elementry School through the PTO. That year the PTO team of Vernice Warren, Edie Maurisak, Dana Stevens, Holly Lane and Kim Schaefer was able to donate over 300 canned goods to area pantries. We established the PTO as a Not-for-Profit organization and it gave us a better opportunity to focus on only on the school but the community.
Charles and Kim Schaefer continued the donations as they held a haunted yard at their home while continuing to collect non-perishable food items for the Monee and Rich Township food pantries. And Talala Elementary continued with the haunted house to continue our goals. Then our children graduated from Talala and we needed to look for another location.
Vernice looked for other locations for the haunted house and hence our partnership with Calvary United Protestant Church located at 425 S Orchard in Park Forest IL. Calvary was not only was a collection site for food items but added a haunted house for families to donate to the cause.
Each year our goal is to bring more items to our food pantries and to bring awareness to the need of food donations to those who are in need. We have donated over 2000 non-perishable items each year after our first year.
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Eventually, we established the name Haunts Against Hunger Park Forest. We have an all-volunteer staff that helps construct, decorate, illustrate scenes and act in our annual haunted house. Each year we have volunteers from many of the area schools, as well as Marian, University of Chicago Lab Schools, Infant Jesus of Prague and Illinois Lutheran. We also have volunteers from Calvary UP Church, PF Rotary, PF Kiwanis Club, The Youth Commission and our faithful parents. Advanced Auto Parts in South Chicago Heights has even helped with advertisements! Kim and Vernice still cooks for the team each night before the event!
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Kim organize the shopping with the funds collected. They load their truck and van with food purchased from our local Aldi's in Chicago Heights. It is counted and divided between the two food pantries which is an exciting day for the entire crew because our hard work finally is paying off!
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Haunts Against Hunger Park Forest plans to continue our mission to bring food to our families with a Haunted House and Donation site each year. In 2015, we have partnered with the Park Forest Youth Commission & The Village of Park Forest to bring our HAH haunted house to a larger scale within the South Suburbs. We foresee an opportunity to give more to our area food pantries for the holidays. In 2016, we have partnered again with the Village of Park Forest and the Youth Commission to bring you more days of scare! Our goal is to have a little fun while helping others. Let us know your ideas on our Facebook page! In 2017, the haunted house was a little bigger due to several donations of wood from area businesses. In 2018, we finally became an 501(c)(3) organization as we applied for not-for-profit status.
The Schaefer Family and Warren Family plans to continue to reach our goals. We have also added the Baggerly family and Karwarta family who continues to help each year with things needed in the haunted house and help with counting our canned food each year! Check back with us and see the outcome! ENTER IF YOU DARE!
Other LOCAL HAUNTS AGAINST HUNGER SITES
There are several across the Chicagoland area
Check your local newspaper, PATCH online news, or GOOGLE for a location near you

