Spooky Cancer Fundraiser ‘FrightFest’ Returns to Field Park Garage

About a decade ago, a few Field Park parents on the 4200 block of Franklin Avenue got together and tricked out a one-car garage as a haunted house, then invited neighborhood kids to come by. The kids’ verdict: “lame.”

Some parents might have given up. Instead, Mike Rimmele and friends decided to spend every subsequent Halloween making those kids pay—in screams.

“They called it lame, so we decided we’d go about really trying to frighten them,” said Rimmele, the founder of Franklin FrightFest and still a major hand in its execution.

“[Now] it’s become sort of a neighborhood fixture… one year, we took it off, and one kid came by and said, ‘what do you mean there’s no haunted house? That’s what Halloween is all about!’”

The event will run on the nights of this year, in the 4209 Franklin Ave. garage of Dave Mitchell—a man so devoted to his craft, he knocked a side door into said garage purely as an entrance for the annual FrightFests.

“[Dave] can visualize and get something done really quickly,” Rimmele said. “He does a great job.”

The freaky foursome who have built this year’s haunted garage—Rimmele, Mitchell, Darren Greving and John Best—have been working every night since Saturday to transform Mitchell’s mild-mannered garage into a demented four-room terror home that will be filled with over 30 volunteers when open for business.

“It’s a lot of fun, and it’s good for us to spend some time and not think about anything too serious and have some fun with it,” Greving said.

Screams of delighted Halloween fear aren’t the only thing that FrightFest will be looking for. The event has always been a charity fundraiser for different organizations, and when Mitchell, also a resident of the 4200 block of Franklin, took over three years ago, it officially became a fundraiser for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Multiple myeloma, also known as Kahler’s disease, is a type of plasma-cell cancer; the MMRF is devoted to its eradication. Mitchell chose the foundation because it affected multiple family friends.

“There’s a number of people that when you mention MMRF or just any type of cancer, they’re in [as volunteers,]” Mitchell said. “It’s amazing how many people have experienced [myeloma] in their family or friends, so it’s good to see that we can help.”

FrightFest is officially free, but donations are requested to benefit the MMRF. Last year, with the help of a local microbrew, FrightFest raised about $2,700. This year—although they’ve cut back from three nights to two—organizers hope to raise $3,000 by expanding from a local neighborhood event to a Village-wide one.

One thing that everyone says about the haunted garage—it seems a lot bigger than a garage once you’re in there.

“How is it so big inside there, and then when I walk in on normal days, it’s so small?” Megan Mitchell, 9, asked herself. Megan is Dave’s daughter, and one of three sisters who will be among the “ghouls” of the garage.

“It’s kind of crazy, because it seems so much bigger when it’s all put together,” said her sister Paige, 12. “People say, ‘oh, was that actually you, did you do that?’ It’s fun, ‘cause you get a lot of attention.”

“I’m even scared to go in it myself,” said the third sister, Katie, 10. “[Even] I never really know what’s going to happen!”

It’d be criminal to give away too many details about the scares in store, but, as has always been the case since that first “lame” year, they’re definitely designed for shrieks. We’ll just say to watch out for “stalkers”… they can drive you insane before you leave…

“I think there’s been some wet pants coming out of there from time to time,” Greving laughed.

Hey, it’s all for a good cause.