Cultural Center to host NYM community Halloween party

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

With Halloween right around the corner, Karvonen Funeral Home has come up with another evening of festivities for families across the region. With an early date set for Saturday, Oct. 25, there will be activities for everyone at their facility in Wadena.

This year’s theme is “The Greatest Mystery Solvers,” and will feature the popular box maze, candy and snacks, and costume contest on top of a Karvonen mystery to solve. The event will run from 3-6 p.m. and all children must have an adult over the age of 18 accompanying them.

“This year we are doing a mystery solvers kind of thing,” said Kendra Schumacher, organizer of the event. “So Blues Clues, Scooby Doo, Sherlock Holmes, and the game Clue are all kind of the muses for this year. We have an actual Karvonen mystery for the kids to solve.

“It’s really fun to include an employee behind-the-scenes story at the same time,” she continued. “It gives the community an idea that we’re not just stoic and only at funerals, we actually have some fun and shenanigans behind the scenes.”

Along with the mystery theme, the annual box maze will be set up in the chapel and available for children and adults alike to make their way through to the other side. With supersized boxes, even the adults are able and invited to make their way through the maze.

“The kids seem to love it,” said Schumacher. “There is not a box maze around here anywhere. They just want to go running through the maze and they’re big boxes, so they’re actually fully able for adults to go through. So it’s made for all ages and it’s just really fun watching them go through and some of them turn it into a race.

“This is our fourth year of doing the boxes,” she continued. “That’s kind of our main attraction here, having the kids be able to show off their costumes to their friends and go through the maze and getting some candy and having fun.”

The Halloween Costume Contest will also be a feature of the event again this year with top contestants winning their own bicycle. Each contestant will get their photo taken, along with their parents’ names, age, and costume and Karvonen staff will pick their top three from each group before turning over the final vote to the community on Facebook.

“We put in our top three favorites of each age and then post those three to our Facebook and from there the community gets to pick the top costume,” said Schumacher. “We cater the bicycle to each child, so they’re winning a bicycle that they can actually ride.”

Schumacher said that she loves being able to organize the event each year and all of the enjoyable moments that she is able to look forward to each Halloween.

“Organizing is a lot of work, but in a way, very fun too, with coming up with the themes and decorating everything,” she said. “I truly love seeing the smiles on kids’ faces as they run through the maze and then the excitement when they come out of the maze being like, ‘I did it, I did it, I wasn’t sure, but I did it!’ Their happiness when they say, ‘I’m going again. And zooming through everything.”

In addition to the community Halloween party at Karvonen Funeral Home in Wadena, the annual New York Mills Halloween Party at the Cultural Center is set for Saturday from 12-3 p.m. 

The event is free of charge and geared towards children ages sixth grade and younger. Among the activities on Saturday will be make and take crafts, Halloween-theme games, as well as plenty of tricks, treats and fun. 

  Costumes are encouraged at the event, which is sponsored by the New York Mills Civic and Commerce Association. 

Children under age eight need to be accompanied by an adult.