By Sarah Curran
ENTER if you dare to Bangor’s very own spooky Halloween house, which has been set up to raise funds for a local Women’s Aid charity.
Darren and Sharon Sterrett have once again transformed their home, in Lord Warden’s Green, into a spooky house of horrors for all to enjoy, in hopes of raising funds for North Down and Ards Women’s Aid.
Trick-or-treaters will enjoy a display of exciting jumping spiders, cackling witches, smoke blowing dragons, creepy scarecrows, growling werewolves, spooky music and a skeleton rock band, all displayed in the front garden of the Sterrett’s family home.
The couple’s daughters, Emily and Erin, also get involved in the family fun, with the entire family dressing up and spooking visitors on occasion.
Darren and Sharon, who own party business Airy Fairies, have been creating the Halloween spooktacular since 2020, when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions curtailed the spirit of Halloween.
Darren explained: “We were coming out of Covid and there was to be no trick-or-treating, so we thought we would do something nice for little kiddies going past and we made up lots of little sweet bags and hung them on a wash line.
“If kids wanted to take them they could or if they didn’t they could leave them. At that stage nobody really knew what was going on.”
Wowed by their display, the couple were encouraged by neighbours and visitors to raise funds for charity and so spurred on they added more to their display each year, picking a different charity to donate to.
The couple, who usually pick their annual charity based on ‘what has been going on in the world’, selected Women’s Aid this year, following the many deaths of women in Northern Ireland in recent weeks.
“From we had even decided this, it has been even more in the news and so for us it has turned out to be a worthy charity to support this year,” Darren said.
The couple met with representatives of the local Women’s Aid and were struck by the work they do, including protecting children who may be witnessing abuse.
Darren stressed that in order to support the charity however, he needed the support of the community to donate in any way they could when enjoying their display.
With more than 50 spectators outside their home at times during the month, Darren laughed that his neighbours were ‘very understanding’.
“We can have quite a turnaround of people standing on the street and come Halloween night, we as a family, get dressed up as different characters and make up around 900 sweetie bags to give out,” he added.
The decorations, which were erected earlier this month, will remain in place until Halloween night, with lights switched on between 6pm-9pm daily (weather dependent). However, smaller kids are welcome to enjoy the display during daylight hours.
Collection buckets remain outside the home for donations and there is an online fundraising page also at : www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/9d97dcf9c3094c26b7e9af06?utm_term=EB6EWa6Ey&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1fed7UjoiEAuUskTAloFq5CC5nsGj5BfJKbNBAiIahqhEQNkKOCZgPNqs_aem_HIdljtOXD1UUmfY913-TeQ
