Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Halloween maze to raise money for 12-year-old lymphoma patient

Fallbrook native Jeff Woodrey is back in Fallbrook this year with his Haunted Hallows, a haunted house maze whose funds will go to support a young girl who is battling cancer.

Twelve-year-old Marilyn was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma. Woodrey was connected to the family by someone he knew in Rainbow.

"I've raised money for three kids now that have cancer," Woodrey said. "It's very personal to me cause my two cousins passed away from cancer, and the first two kids I raised money for had the same type of cancer that my two cousins passed away from, so it's like, this is what I'm supposed to do, so that's why I do it."

Woodrey has been working on Haunted Hallows for the past eight months.

"It's more of a haunted trail than a haunted house," Woodrey said. "It's primarily outside, maybe one person of it is kind of indoors, but I have a bunch of animated props, tons of decor, volunteers." This is the biggest one he's done.

"I've been told that my haunted house is better than some of the professional haunted houses here in San Diego County," Woodrey said. "It's a maze this year. Before it was more kind of like a straight walk through, but I've made it a lot larger this year. It's pretty cool."

Woodrey has loved Halloween since he was a kid.

"The first Halloween party I did for my family was when I was 15, and then I did a Halloween party for about 18 years," Woodrey said. "I started doing the fundraiser cause my family was starting to get kind of burnt out on all of the Halloween parties every year, so I decided I wanted to do a haunted house for the community, but also help others at the same time."

This is his fifth year running a fundraiser.

"The first year was really small, I'd say maybe 200 people came through," he said. "The second year I would say over the course of the six days we did, I'd say 800 to 1,000 people, and then the next year I would say probably 1,500 came through."

Last year in Rainbow they had around 800 people.

"We did okay, we were so far out there, I don't think a lot of people wanted to make the drive out to Rainbow," Woodrey said.

This year due to COVID-19, there are some guidelines.

"There's social distancing, rules will be in place," Woodrey said. "I'm going to have markers that are eight feet apart so if we get large groups, to make sure that they're not interacting with anybody else. Masks are mandatory, unless somebody has an actual health condition and can't wear a mask, we'll accommodate them."

There is no parking permitted at SonRise Christian Fellowship this year.

For more information on Haunted Hallows, visit https://www.facebook.com/HauntedHallowsOfFallbrook. To help out with Marilyn's GoFundMe, visit https://gf.me/u/ydftdu.

Lexington Howe can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

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