The family that scares together, stays together.
The Mullins family came to Sammamish from California in 2011. Mark, an employee at Microsoft, and his wife Sherri, heard about an event held every October called “Nightmare at Beaver Lake.” In 2012, they took their daughters, Danielle, now 15, and Kaylee, now 13, to see the annual haunted house, presented by the Sammamish Rotary.
“After going to [Nightmare], Danielle and Kaylee were really excited about it and wanted to volunteer the following year,” Sherri said. “The girls wanted to volunteer with their friends, but they could not find anyone available, so I suggested we do it as a family.”
Now in their second year of volunteering, Mark and Danielle do makeup while Kaylee works in her second year as a show actor. Sherri, after acting last year with Kaylee — actors 12 or under have to act with a parent — is working the ticket booth.
“It ended up being a great family thing to do together,” Sherri said. “It was also a great way for us to get involved in the community.”
Volunteer commitments for “Nightmare” can run for weeks on end, including the two weeks the show is in production. Between work, school, and other commitments, finding the time for an entire family to volunteer can be challenging, Sherri said, but it is a commitment that is “worth the time and effort.”
“It is difficult to balance everything,” Sherri said. “Homework has to be done ahead of time on the days that Kaylee is acting because the acting shift can be five to six hours a night, depending on the crowds and the day of the week.”
While Mark and Danielle enjoy the creative side of making actors look like the dead, diseased and horrible creatures of the night, Kaylee just likes to scare people, according to Sherri, especially when she makes an adult scream.
At the same time, the kids learn a valuable lesson about volunteering.
“We think it is very important to volunteer. It teaches you that your time is
valuable to others, allows you to do something you haven’t experienced before, work with all types of people, and make new friends,” Sherri said.
Volunteering has more than one benefit for the Rotary. As a Microsoft employee, Mark is able to have Microsoft match the hours he volunteers through the Microsoft Volunteer Match program. Under that program, Microsoft will make a monetary donation matching the value of Mark’s time to the Sammamish Rotary.
“Another positive thing that it taught my girls is that they didn’t have to start doing it with all of their friends. The first year, they did it without knowing any people other than their family,” Sherri said. “It is an easy, fun way to help the community.”
