11/01/2026
Colorado Christian writer and commentator Douglas Vandergraph sent the Whitehall Ledger an article of support in the Screams Come True mission.
WHEN THE LAST PROP COMES DOWN
By Douglas Vandergraph
A haunted house is designed to make people notice what jumps out of the darkness. But the most important part of Whitehall's Screams Come True story may be what happens after the last visitor has gone home.
As the Whitehall Ledger reported on October 28, volunteers are being sought to help dismantle the haunted house at the Community Center on Sunday, November 1. The event itself raises support for the Star Theatre and Gold Junction Presents. The work behind it, however, also offers a lesson about the kind of community we become when the applause stops.
It takes imagination to build a maze that delights and surprises people. It takes a different kind of imagination to see the tired volunteer who will be there hauling away decorations, stacking supplies and restoring a public space for its next purpose. One contribution draws a crowd. The other often happens when almost nobody is watching.
Jesus taught that faithfulness in small things matters. He also washed his disciples' feet, doing work that people of status might have considered beneath them. His example turns our usual measure of importance upside down. The person who helps carry out the last folding table is not a footnote to the celebration. That person is part of its success.
Small towns depend on people willing to stay after the music ends, after the lights go out, after the cleanup becomes somebody's responsibility. They need volunteers who will lend a hand without needing a photograph or a thank-you speech. They also need neighbors who notice when the same dependable few have been doing that work for years.
The Ledger's notice is more than a request for extra hands. It is an invitation to practice a simple kind of gratitude: share the less glamorous part of something we enjoy.
Whitehall's haunted house may finish its season on Halloween. The good it creates can continue on November 1, in the people who show up.
Douglas Vandergraph
Fort Collins, Colorado
Christian writer and commentator
