Vandals trash Allaire Village's spooky hayride

[29yrswithaGApass]

Source - Asbury Park Press

 

Vandals trash Allaire Village's spooky hayride

ORGANIZERS: Vow event will go on despite destruction

By Charles Webster • COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU • October 8, 2008

 

WALL — The plan was to provide some creepy fun with holiday ghouls and goblins, but unfortunately for the staff at Allaire Village, some real creeps and ghouls showed up to vandalize their efforts.

 

Vandals raided the historic Allaire Village and destroyed most of the elements that make up the haunted hayride at the state park.

 

"What they didn't take, they left scattered around the area in splinters," said Diana Ioanid, assistant executive director at Allaire Village. "Vandalism is one thing, but this was very passionate and deliberate."

 

Nearly 40 handmade tombstones and gravemarkers were stolen or destroyed along one stretch of the route of the annual haunted hayride at the village.

 

"They may have taken our tombstones, but our spirit will rise above all of this," Ioanid said.

 

Near the remnants of what was supposed to be the cemetery, plastic skeleton bones were tossed out of reach into the briers and trees, along with a handmade solid pine box coffin that was found deep in the surrounding thicket.

 

"I just don't know how we're going to get it out of there," Ioanid said as she surveyed the damages.

 

A few yards down the wooded route, a makeshift Piney village where the Jersey Devil would have felt right at home looked more like it had received a visit from the Big Bad Wolf, who huffed and puffed and blew it all down. The Piney village was completely wrecked and reduced to nothing more than piles of wood and sticks.

 

"It's like a bulldozer went through there," Ioanid said. "Luckily, not everything was put out, or we would be in some real trouble."

 

The makeshift Piney village was a holdover from last year's haunted hayrides, and was created and maintained by volunteers at Allaire Village.

 

"The man hours put into all of this was incredible," lamented Michael McManus, Allaire Village manager. "What a mess."

 

"Somebody had to spend a few hours doing all this, or there was a large group of people involved," Ioanid said.

 

More than 50 volunteers have worked on creating the scary atmosphere for the annual haunted hayride. Plans included transforming the entire historic village and the wooded hayride route into a place inhabited by witches, zombies, ghosts and goblins, but with no chainsaws or over-the-top gore, according to Ioanid.

 

Staff and volunteers were out working along the route on Monday in preparation for the kickoff of the haunted hayrides on Oct. 17. McManus and Ioanid are convinced all of the damage was done overnight into Tuesday.

 

"The hard work of our young kids and volunteers has been reduced to nothing," Ioanid said.

 

The only section of the hayride route that went untouched was a small opening along the wooded route that was home to ghosts and goblins hung from a few tree branches.

 

Everything else along the 15-minute route was destroyed.

 

"I don't know why it wasn't touched, unless they planned to come back again," Ioanid said.

 

Between 3,000 and 4,000 people are expected to attend the annual haunted hayride event at Allaire Village this year, with its "Oddities of the Garden State" theme.

 

Ioanid says the haunted hayrides will go on as planned and vows not to let the vandalism dampen their efforts.

 

She is hoping to get as many volunteers as possible back to Allaire Village to help rebuild the destroyed sites.

 

"We have a shoestring budget to pull this off, but we put on a world-class event on that budget. So the people who did this may think they hurt us, but we will pool all our volunteers together to make sure this is the best hayride ever," Ioanid said.

 

For more information, call (732) 919-3500 or visitwww.allairevillage.org.

 

[JetsDevs4Lyf]

That is really disheartening to hear. In all honesty stuff like this seems to happen all too often these days, and because of it each year there seem to be less and less options for people because those willing to put on these types of programs don't want to deal with issues like this one. Being as I am in that middle stage now, not a kid anymore, but no kids of my own either, I am not sure where to look to figure out what the problem is. Whether it be kids with too much time on their hands, adults who are just horrid people, or something else I really don't know, but it is sad to see something like this happen to people not harming anyone with their efforts. I really do hope they find out who partook in the destruction of that place to be able to charge them because this is just a pathetic act of vagrants.