By Mikayla van Loon
A special visit to the ultimate spooky residence on Mount Dandenong Tourist Road was all hundreds of local kids and adults needed to hit the streets of Montrose on Monday 31 October.
The mother and daughter event organising duo, Marlana and Leslie from Mainlie Events, have hosted a Halloween display every year for the last 15 years and use it as a way of raising funds for the Montrose CFA brigade.
“We absolutely love horror and Halloween and the community too. I just love getting Montrose together and seeing the effort that gets put into costumes and all the cuties,” Marlana said.
“We’ve always done Halloween and I feel like for the last sort of 10 years it has been bigger and bigger. Last year we had about 400 people and I think it’s going to be a lot more this year.”
Children of all ages, their parents and some adults on their own came to witness the self-made, and sometimes terrifying, decorations placed from naturestrip to the top of the driveway.
Planning, designing, making and setting up the display starts six months before the event but the real work begins in early October so people can get a taste of what is to come by 31 October.
“We’ve probably been putting this up since the start of October a little bit by little bit and the main part we do probably about two days before,” Marlana said.
Every year Marlana and Leslie go bigger, this year adding a scary clown filled tent and a garage of horrors only for those brave enough to clap upon entry.
This was only the second year the Halloween event has been hosted at Marlana’s house, traditionally set at her mother’s but the community still came out in numbers.
With Montrose CFA and the Montrose Township Group spreading the word about the event a constant stream of people walked in and around the mega setup.
Marlana said somehow or another everyone in Montrose seems to have a connection to the fire brigade and that’s why it seems only right to support them each year.
“We do two events. This one and a lady’s day in April, both times we raised funds for the CFA. We were looking at other charities but [the CFA] does such a brilliant job in everything they do,” she said.
“We’ve lived here, my husband and I, for the last 10 years and we’ve just started to get to know everybody and everybody knows everybody and that’s how we got to know the CFA and some of the people there.”
An extra special inclusion was the attendance of some firefighters themselves and a big red fire truck to be admired by young and old.
Montrose CFA community engagement officer Eddie Tichelaar also brought along a fan favourite in the Eastey Austin Fire Truck.
Mr Tichelaar said it was a great community event to be involved in and the CFA was grateful for the support from all the locals who came out on Monday.
