The Haunted House in Frisco, Colorado

Last night it was really fun to attend a reception and preview of the Town of Frisco's Haunted House hosted by the excellent marketing team of the town. The Haunted House http://bit.ly/dc8z89 is open from 6:30 to 10:00 pm Friday October 29 through Sunday 31.
The reception in the Frisco Information Center was really nice, and my neighbor Carol Bartoletti and I met some great people. The staff members attending were very informative and we even signed a petition to allow the Day Lodge at the new Frisco Adventure Park http://bit.ly/acrP7X to have a liquor license. The park will have a tubing and jib hill opening in December, and the lodge has a great room with WiFi, perfect for parents to hang out while their kids are up on the hill. Wouldn't you want a nice hot chocolate with something in it, a beer or a wine, as you sit in front of the fireplace catching up on your e-mails? Seems like a no brainer to me.
Carol and I enjoyed chatting with Simone Belz, manager of the Historic Park and Museum http://bit.ly/c6v5S2. Carol had just been to a bread baking class and they discussed the idea of adding historic interactive cooking classes to Frisco's Founders Day http://bit.ly/9mUbZ6, the celebration during the 4th July holiday weekend of the history of the town.
We also met Brittany and Brain Anderson of Footprints Adventures http://footprintsadventures.org. Their story was profiled back in April in the Summit Daily http://bit.ly/dqqJ58. Brian sustained a severe hiking accident and could have lost his foot due to the severity of the injury to his ankle. In the winter they work for the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center http://www.boec.org/ that provides outdoor adventure for those with disabilities. This coming summer they will hold their first summer camp for teens 16-18 who have limb difference and limb loss. Brian had been the main volunteer helping the students with the construction of the Haunted House. With my connections to the disabled community in my previous role as Executive Director of the Colorado Wheelchair Tennis Foundation http://www.cwtf.net/, we had a great deal to talk about and a lot of networking to share, and I look forward to helping them any way I can in the future. As a former special education teacher, Carol has some experience in grant writing, so she offered to help proof any of their efforts in this direction.
The networking at your local town events brings up many opportunities you might not have thought possible. So I encourage each of you to become involved with your local community if you have some time to give. The rewards will far outweigh the effort. But I digress - back to the events.
At 7:15 we all went outside to watch a Flash Mob. Now I had seen Frisco's Special Events & Marketing Coordinator Jaime Harmon's tweets during the day about this event and was luckily able to find her at the reception to find out what this was. I may have figured out how to blog and use bit.ly, do Facebook and Twitter, but this one was over the head of this 55 year old. So a Flash Mob is when the social media networks give a call for everyone to gather in a certain place and then a dance or some other activity is performed http://bit.ly/157x2v. This has been happening in large cities but this was to be the first one in a small town. Student dancers performed a great monster dance in the middle of 3rd Avenue to the Monster Mash tune and they were joined by all of the students from the Haunted House and some of the town's staff. I could not quite figure out the dance moves or I would have joined in.
Then it was our turn to be led to visit the Haunted House located behind the Information Center by Frisco Events Manager Suzanne Lifgren. The stars of this project are the students from the Mountain Mentors http://bit.ly/bhtYj1 activity program as part of the Summit Cares program http://summitcares.org/, that allows students to explore work opportunities.  They were amazing - they truly scared the ****** out of me. Their costumes are great and their acting suberb. Carol and I particularly liked the student having the fit chained to the operating table with cut off fingers in the surgical tray and the guy with the chain saw as you exit - but I do not want to give too much away and spoil the surpise or the scare factor. The Haunted House is $7 a person, $5 with a student ID, and there is a great deal - only $20 for a family of four. It is open to ages seven and up, any younger I think they might have nightmares - luckily I didn't last night! Proceeds from the house go to the Mountain Mentors program.
So come on out one and all - have fun and help a great program. Maybe make two trips to Frisco Main Street. Go to the Haunted House on a night other than Halloween and then come see High Country Activities http://bit.ly/cyaN5o in the Woods Cabin at the Frisco Historic Park on Halloween night for some candy.
Congratulations to the Town of Frisco and their staff and the students from Mountain Mentors for setting up a great event for the kids of Summit County and this one very scared baby boomer.
LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ALL THOSE GHOULS, GOBLINS & WITCHES THERE.