Amidst the dinosaurs and inflatable slides, Halloween will come a night early for kids at the Vine Community Church.
The church’s lead pastor, Sándor Paull, said the church will use all 36,000 square feet to host a Jurassic-themed Halloween for kids, which will take place from 6 to 9 pm on Friday.
“The plan that we have is to create the dinosaur exhibit—the Smithsonian,” Jennifer Quinn said, the church’s children’s director. “So hopefully to make this place look like a dinosaur has definitely been here.”
Paull said the church is holding the event the night before Halloween so parents can take their kids out for the normal trick-or-treating.
Mike Berardi, an associate pastor overseeing the event, said the event’s controlled environment will be comforting for parents.
“Me being a parent of two kids, I know there seems to be a lot of high school kids that go out and go trick-or-treating,” Berardi said. “So it’s more of a safe alternative for kids.”
Paull said this is the ninth year for the event. Berardi said there were about 500 kids in attendance last year, which he expects to double this year. He said the church sent about 4,000 invitations, including invitations to all local grade schools.
Berardi said as the event gains popularity, the need for volunteers grows. Quinn said there are about 500 volunteers setting up throughout the week and around 150 volunteers for the event itself.
“The church has grown but the event has also grown along with it,” Berardi said. “This is by far the most people that have helped out.”
Paull said the various activities featured at the event include inflatable slides, games, a scavenger hunt, a dunk tank, a bonfire and hay rides.
Quinn said the church started working on ideas in July and has spent a month building sets. Quinn said she was especially excited for a Jurassic-themed inflatable playpen that is 30 feet long, 30 feet wide and 16 feet high.
Berardi said he went to Universal Studios in Florida to research and gather ideas for the event.
“Every kid I’ve ever met loves dinosaurs,” Berardi said. “Because it is a kid’s event and kids like dinosaurs, then we’re just going to have fun with that.”
Quinn said one of the church’s ideas was to build its own dinosaur, which will be about 20 feet long and 12 feet high. To create it, she said they put together a three-dimensional dinosaur jigsaw puzzle, blew up all the individual pieces, cut them out of foam board and put them back together.
Paull said the church even tried to make their own dry ice because smoke machines set off the fire alarms.
“When I heard we’re creating our own machines to make dry ice…I mean, these guys get crazy,” Paull said.
“We love it,” Quinn said. “We love getting different senses and sounds and just making it really memorable for the kids.”
Quinn said the budget for the event was between $3,000 and $4,000. She said about $1,400 was spent on candy and volunteers will bring more.
“We’ve given so much candy away historically that we’ve had to provide discreet ways for parents to give candy back,” Paull said. “So we have redeposit zones for them to dump half of it on their way out.”
Berardi said the event is a great chance for parents to meet new people while their kids play.
“It’s probably assumed that because we’re a church we don’t support the underlying spiritual origination of Halloween,” Berardi said. “So rather than ignore the holiday, I think it’s more important for us to be able use it to develop relationships and friendships.”
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