A Haunted House That Gives Back in Harmony, Minnesota

In Harmony, Minnesota, a group of dedicated volunteers turn their love for Halloween into something extraordinary: a haunted house that helps fund local arts and music programs. Monster Bash, Inc. isn't your typical haunted attraction; it's a nonprofit organization that channels the thrill of the scare into real support for students and the arts. 

Jay Masters, President of Monster Bash, Inc. shares how it all started, what keeps it going, and why this spooky tradition has become such a powerful force for good.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
The Growing Destinations Podcast is brought

(00:02):
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Learn more about Minnesota'sthird largest city, which is
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SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Every year our haunt is different.
It's never the same twice.
Every year we have a differenttheme, a different floor plan,
the scares are different.
I tell people if you come anytwo years in a row, you will not
see anything duplicated fromyear to year.
And that's what keeps peoplecoming back.

SPEAKER_01 (00:31):
Welcome to the Growing Destinations Podcast,
where we take a deep dive intodestination development and
focus on a wide range of topicsfrom tourism and entertainment
to economic development andentrepreneurism and much more.
I'm your host, Bill Von Bank.
Today we're diving into a storythat blends creativity,
community, and just the rightamount of fright.

(00:53):
In Harmony, Minnesota, a groupof dedicated volunteers turn
their love for Halloween intosomething extraordinary: a
haunted house that helps fundlocal arts and music programs.
Monster Bash Inc.
isn't your typical hauntedattraction.
It's a nonprofit organizationthat channels the thrill of the
scare into real support forstudents and the arts.

(01:14):
Joining me today is Jay Masters,president of Monster Bash Inc.,
to share how it all started,what keeps it going, and why
this spooky tradition has becomesuch a powerful force for good.
Jay Masters, welcome to theGrowing Destinations Podcast.
Thank you, Bill.
It's great to be here.
Well, you've been involved in areally spooky attraction in

(01:34):
Harmony, Minnesota that supportsa lot of great initiatives.
Share the details of how MonsterBash Inc., the nonprofit you
lead, as well as the MonsterBash Haunted House, all came
together.

SPEAKER_00 (01:48):
Well, it's uh an interesting story, I think, to
me anyway.
Uh, I've always enjoyedHalloween, and I've always had a
passion for helping young peopleto get started.
And so I had an idea for doing ahaunted house as a fundraiser,
and I had it for several years.
I approached my local churchyouth group about doing it, and

(02:09):
they didn't seem to think thatthey had the the wherewithal to
make it work.
And then I later approached agroup of Chamber of Commerce
folks in the Harmony area, andthey weren't real keen on it.
And then I started doing a smallhaunted house on my back porch
for trick-or-treaters.
And the first one was prettysimple, but it was it was fun.

(02:29):
And then the second year we gota little more elaborate, and my
father and I worked on it forabout a week to kind of pull it
all together and had severalscenes and different things that
the that the kids could gothrough.
And so I started bringing theband director down.
He lived about two doors downfrom me, and his son and my son
were in the same class andplayed basketball together.
And I kept saying, you know,this could be a great

(02:51):
fundraiser.
This could be a greatfundraiser.
When did this all take place?
Oh gosh, that probably backyardporch.
The porch uh I'm guessing thatwas probably 2010, uh, 2009,
2010, 2011, somewhere in there.
And after seeing the secondversion of the haunted house, he
said, you know, Jay, I I justthink this is gonna be too much

(03:12):
work.
And I said, All right, I tellyou what, if you can get the
kids excited about it, if youcan get the parents excited
about it, I'll do the legwork.
I'll do it all, I'll lay out thefloor plans, I'll organize the
work days, I'll go and raisemoney so that we can buy lumber
and paint and props and and andget it off the ground.
And he said, All right, let'slet's try it.

SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
The evolution of this went from your porch then
to what?

SPEAKER_00 (03:37):
We started off in the gymnasium of what used to be
the old elementary school inHarmony.
It's now where City Hall islocated.
And the city said, sure, you canuse this this space.
So we we started building, andthen we had, of course, have a
place to store all this stuff.
So we we stored our walls in thethe bus shed, which was in in
Preston, Minnesota, and then wefound someone who said he had a

(04:00):
vacant building over by Granger,so in opposite directions.
Uh so every time we would setup, we would start in Preston
and bring the walls back, loadthem all up, bring them back.
Then we'd empty the trucks andthe vans and we'd head for to
Granger to pick up props andbring those back, and we'd had
people putting up walls whileother people were decorating,
and we would we would put it allup in about two days.

SPEAKER_01 (04:21):
And when it became something more than a hobby for
you or something fun from yourback porch into something big,
what what was the turning pointyear for that?

SPEAKER_00 (04:30):
I I think it was probably the f the the the first
year that that we startedMonster Bash because we raised
good about about eleven thousanddollars in the first year, and
we were all blown away becausewe were charging like like five
dollars a person to go through.
And did you form the nonprofitright away?
We did not.
We continued to operate forabout five years uh with just a

(04:51):
group of volunteers and parents.
We would meet with parents uh inMay uh and say, okay, this is
what we're gonna do for thehaunted house, this is what the
theme is, this is what the roomslook like, and then families
would volunteer to take rooms todecorate.
We would provide everything.
They just had to go in andprovide the manpower to put it
all together.
And it was after about the fifthyear, it just so happened that I

(05:13):
was losing the space where wewere storing all of our props.
The guy had sold the buildingand we were in in dire straits.
I actually thought, okay, we'veprobably done our last haunted
house at that point.
And someone from the communitycame to me and said, Jay, you
know, you guys are doing a greatthing there.
I know there's a building intown that's for sale.
It's going to go up for auction.
I think you guys should buy itand and move your haunted house

(05:35):
there.
And I said, Well, we don't haveany money because every nickel
and or dime that we made, wegave right back to the kids.
We didn't have a bank account,we didn't have a treasurer, we
had none of that.
And he said, Well, you knowwhat?
I think the people in thecommunity would support you in
in purchase of the building.
And so he gave us$5,000.

(05:56):
We went to an auction and webought the building that we are
currently housed in uh for$55,000.
And we proceeded to do a bigcapital campaign to try to raise
enough money to pay it off.
We got a loan from the EDAbecause we were bringing a lot
of people into town, which werethe businesses were very happy
about, and then we ended uppaying off the building.

(06:18):
In the meantime, that the uhChamber of Commerce in town
said, Hey, you know what, you'rebringing all these great people
to town, but it's it's afterhours.
Would you be in support of usputting on a haunted harmony
festival every year?
And I said, Absolutely.
And so that has taken off aswell.
So there's a whole festival thatkind of revolves around the
haunted house uh in Harmony,brings people to town.

(06:39):
They have free Halloween movieuh at the theater, they've got
uh trunk retreat, costumecontests, the businesses all
decorate up.
Niagara Cave, I understand theythey were, I think they are
still going to be doing somelantern-lit tours of the cave by
uh advanced reservation.
And so there's a lot of thingsthat have kind of built from us

(07:01):
putting on this little hauntedhouse.

SPEAKER_01 (07:03):
Little intensity and density around what you've
started.
Absolutely.
Absolutely very thematic.
Yes, it's become a part of thecommunity.
What did it take to formalizeMonster Bash as a 501c3?
I know there's paperwork andthere's uh IRS designation,
things like that, correct?
Correct.

SPEAKER_00 (07:20):
I was I was very fortunate.
I went to the attorney in townand was asking them if they
would consider making a donationto our capital campaign and got
to talking with the attorney andhe said I understand that you're
interested in becoming a 501c3.
And I said, Yes.
And I said, I don't know reallyhow to do that.
I know it's rather arduous, butbut yes, we would like to become

(07:42):
a 501c3.
And he said, I tell you what,that'll be my donation.
He did the paperwork.
He did the paperwork, he gotinformation from me, he
submitted it to the state, andone day I got information in the
mail that said, Congratulations,you're a 501c3.
So we were recognized by thefederal government.
And we're also a tax-exemptentity in the state of
Minnesota.

(08:02):
So if we're purchasing props orpaint or things like that, we
fortunately don't have to paysales tax, which is nice.
Big deal.
Yeah, I'd make that that itallows us to put more money into
the haunt and and give moneymore back, more money back to
the to the kids every year.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 (08:15):
What made you choose the arts, especially music and
theater, as the focus of yourfundraising efforts?

SPEAKER_00 (08:20):
The band director at the time was a good friend of
mine.
Like I say, our our our uh sonsplayed basketball together.
In fact, when they were seniors,they were captains of the
basketball team.
And so we had traveled around tobasketball tournaments and
things quite a bit in thesummer.
He lived two doors down, and hecame to me and said, you know,
um we're gonna be performingdown at Disney World and and
it's gonna cost about$2,000 akid.

(08:40):
We need to come up with a way toto help these families be able
to afford this.
Uh Fillmore County, where we'relocated, has one of the lowest
per capita incomes in the stateof Minnesota.
And so that kind of pushed me tosay, okay, then then we really
need to do this.
We really need to make thishappen.
And uh so we did.
And uh any student or parent oranyone that's involved, for

(09:04):
every hour they work, they get acredit.
And they can put that credittowards any student that they
want within the the artsprograms.
And then every two years theband and choir take one of these
performance trips, like the onethat they were gonna take to
Disney that year.
And so at the end of eachseason, we determine how much
money we've made.
We take out what we need as anorganization to survive.

(09:26):
I mean, we still have to paytaxes, we still have to have
insurances, we have startupmoney for next year, et cetera,
et cetera, utility costs, etc.
And so we take out what we thinkwe're gonna need, and then we
take what's left and we dividethat, you know, by the credits
that people turn in.
So all of that money, everyevery year we have a uh a dollar
and cent rate, if you will, thatevery hour of someone's work uh

(09:47):
they earn.
And that can go into thatstudent's account.
I've had students who have cometo me and said, you know, I
couldn't have gone on this lasttrip had it not been for Monster
Bash.
And some of the families havewho have been heavily involved
have gone on these trips andnever had to pay a dime out of
their own pocket.
Out of their own pockets.

SPEAKER_01 (10:03):
Yeah.
As you mobilize this and turnedit into something big, how did
or how do you measure success,both from dollars raised or
community involvement or justkeeping the lights on?
I mean, do you do you look at weneed to raise so much money, or
do you look at you you talkedabout helping kids, how many
kids you can support?

SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
How do you measure success?
I think we measure it in in anumber of ways, Bill.
I think obviously, you know,we're we're there as a
fundraiser.
We're we're trying to raisemoney.
That's that's always our our ournumber one thought, I guess.
What can we do to be moreprofitable?
What can we do to put on a goodshow so that the word will
spread and we'll we'll attractmore people?
So that is is a big factor.
How much can we give back eachyear?

(10:43):
I mean, is a direct result ofhow much we take in, obviously.
And I think uh we've measuredsuccess by uh how well we've
been received in the community.
For instance, we just added on a$200,000 addition to our
building.

SPEAKER_01 (10:56):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
And so we started a three-year capital campaign and
we asked people to make a pledgefor three years, private
individuals, businesses,foundations, nonprofits.
And we're almost at the end ofthis year, we'll be at the end
of year two, and we'vecollected, you know, almost
two-thirds of the money thatwe've raised.
Even though we're still aboutten to fifteen thousand dollars

(11:19):
short of what we're gonna needto pay everything off.
We do have some loans, ofcourse, but uh we'll use the
money that we take in from thepledges to pay off loans, and
then we may, if we can't raisemore money, have to uh put forth
more more capital into itourselves.
And we're already the largestdonor to the capital campaign.
We we put in about twelvethousand dollars each year.

SPEAKER_01 (11:35):
You're president of Monster Bash Inc.
You do have a day job too.
So this is volunteer.
What does your day-to-day orseason-to-season involvement
look like for this initiative?

SPEAKER_00 (11:46):
I've told many people that it for me
personally, it's almost a secondfull-time job.
Usually by this time of year, wealready have a theme for next
year, and I'm already planninghow that's going to come
together, what we're gonna do.
Because every year our haunt isdifferent.
It's never the same twice.
Every year we have a differenttheme, a different floor plan.
The scares are different.
I tell people if you come anytwo years in a row, you will not

(12:07):
see anything duplicated fromyear to year.
And that's what keeps peoplecoming back.
It's always new, it's alwaysfresh.
It's a lot of work, dude.
But it is a lot of work.
And so I'm always working,looking at, okay, what can we do
to incorporate new scares?
What are some neat themes we cando?
Um, how can we decorate thewalls?
The one comment we get from alot of people is they can't

(12:28):
believe after they go through ishow elaborate everything is.
We're not just dark hallways anddark rooms where people jump out
of the corner and scare you.
Um, for instance, we had an oldWest ghost town theme a few
years back.
We called it Spectre Gulch.
We had a saloon, we had asheriff's office, we had a bank,
we had uh an old mine shaft thatthey had to to get through, as

(12:49):
well as other uh spaces thatwould be in an old West town.
And they looked like the roomsthat they were supposed to be.
If we have a uh haunt andthere's supposed to be a room
that looks like a kitchen, itlooks like a kitchen.
Uh we have if we have pots andbands, we have cupboards on the
walls, we it's very elaboratelydecorated.
Our costumes, uh, we've gottento where they are tremendous

(13:10):
year in and year out.
We've started utilizinganimatronics to supplement our
live actors.
Uh every year we'll haveanywhere from 32 to 36 live
actors every single night in thehaunt.
Wow.
And those actors are our highschool students, they are
parents, and and we have actorstraining.
We we we coach them up everyyear.

(13:32):
We talk to them about generallyhow do you scare people.
You don't have to yell andscream, you don't have to say
anything.
Sometimes just by getting ratherclose to someone, it can unnerve
them and make them make them alittle uncomfortable.
But then we take them into theindividual rooms where they will
be performing and we coach themup as to things that we want
them to say, things we don'twant them to say.

(13:53):
For instance, we don't wantpeople to go into three
different rooms and havesomebody yell the same thing at
the get out, or you know, whatyou're not supposed to be, or
whatever.
So we give them specific linesthat they're supposed to use so
that they're not diminishing ascare in another room or another
place that the that our guestswill be going through.

SPEAKER_01 (14:09):
From a planning process, how early do you start
from ideation to build out?

SPEAKER_00 (14:14):
In a perfect scenario, like I say, we will we
will be working two years ahead.
We will have our haunt thatwe're working on now.
We'll already know what thetheme will be for the for the
coming year.
This year, because of thecapital campaign and the
building of the uh of the newstructure, uh, we fell a little
bit behind on that.
But after right after thehaunt's over this year, we're
gonna come up with two themes,one that will be for next year

(14:36):
and then one would be thefollowing year.
And then once we get a theme, wework on a logo so that we can
put together our posters uh andour t-shirts.
Every year we sell new t-shirtswith the logo on them.
And so then we can start workingon our marketing, get the end
get the word out.
So it's it's an ongoing processall year long.

SPEAKER_01 (14:52):
In addition to the actors, how many total people
are involved in in putting thison?

SPEAKER_00 (14:57):
I would say in the course of a j of a year, it
would be anywhere from eighty toone hundred.
That might have some have minorparts, but yet it they're
involved.
We without their involvement, weyou know wouldn't wouldn't be
what we are.
We've been named the number oneHalloween attraction in the
state of Minnesota for the lastseven years in a row by
Minnesota Hauntedhouses.com.

(15:19):
They track not only hauntedhouses, they track haunted
forests, they track appleorchards, hay rides, um, any
type of uh of a Halloween orhaunted attraction, they
monitor, and we were namednumber one overall attraction,
not just the number one hauntedhouse, but the number one
overall attraction for the lastseven years in a row.
I should say our last sevenhaunts in a row because during

(15:40):
COVID we didn't have a haunt.

SPEAKER_01 (15:41):
Beyond the fun of creating scares, what personally
drives you to keep doing thisyear after year?

SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
I I think it's it's helping kids.
I I like to give kids a chance.
Everybody should be able toparticipate fully in in all the
activities that are offered at aschool district, regardless of
what their family's income is.
And so I like helping families,I like helping kids.
I mean, it's not that I'm youknow just exclusive to the arts.
I years ago I started the youthfootball program down there too.

(16:07):
So I just I like to help kids.
And so that's kind of what hashas kind of kept me energized
and involved because we get newkids through all the time.

SPEAKER_01 (16:16):
Do you have a vision for the future for Monster Bash
Haunted House?

SPEAKER_00 (16:20):
Well, obviously we're going to be expanding next
year because we'll be able toutilize the new space that we
have.
We also just this year purchasedthe land next to us, and uh it's
basically a two uh two lots.
Um down the corner was the oldum township hall.
We've talked to one of ourlegislators, Greg Davids, about
the possibility of puttingtogether a proposal to build a

(16:41):
regional center for the artsadjacent to our building where
we could do plays and we coulddo concerts and we could have
art exhibits, we could rentspace out for large gatherings,
class reunions, potentially, youknow, maybe even wedding
receptions, and have a placeupstairs for nonprofits in the
area to have meeting space,whether it's uh Boy Scouts, the

(17:03):
Girl Scouts, FFA, uh Lions Club,whatever it might be, where they
could have a space where theycould have a dedicated space
that they knew that they coulduse year-round and have their
meetings and in a comfortablesetting that wouldn't cost them
anything.
We've done 12 haunts.
This is our 13th this year.

(17:24):
So far, we've given back$184,321.50.
Pushing$200K, that's prettygood.
Yes, after this year, we will wewill definitely be over$200,000.
And within another year or two,I will be able to say we've
given back a quarter of amillion.

SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
Jay, how can people learn more about Monster Bash
Haunted House?

SPEAKER_00 (17:43):
They could go to our website, and that is Monsterbash
Haunted House.org.
ORG because we're a nonprofit,so we're an org.
And just remember to have thetwo H's at the end of H and
before and in Haunted House,because we have uh had people
say, Well, I couldn't find itbecause they only put one H in
there.
It's Monsterbash Haunted Housedot org.

SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
J Masters, what a great story.
Creativity, community, and alittle Halloween spirit all
working together to support thearts.
Thanks for sharing how MonsterBash has grown into such a
meaningful local tradition.
And thank you for being ourguest on the Growing
Destinations Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 (18:21):
It's been my pleasure, Bill.
Thank you very much for havingme.

SPEAKER_01 (18:24):
Thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations
Podcast.
And don't forget to subscribe.
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