Cindy waves goodbye to hosting Halloween parties for residents after 18 years
Cindy van Latum was able to bring the community of Sunninghill together through Halloween parties that she hosted for almost two decades.
The memory of how Cindy van Latum began hosting Halloween parties for her community in Sunninghill, is still as fresh as if it popped into her mind yesterday. However, she has decided to stop the fun after almost two decades of nothing but joy.
She said she is happy and content with her decision as she walks down memory lane with Fourways Review about how it all started and continued.
“It was late on a Friday afternoon around 18 or 19 years ago, when I thought, Hmm, Halloween is on Tuesday. Something just went off in my head and the next day I raced to a party shop in Fourways, bought some Halloween outfits and sweets and then went home to create the Halloween flyer. Something along the lines of how selling your house can turn into your worst nightmare, but use me to assist and all will be well.
“I had a few hundred flyers a few days later. A friend of mine, Lisa Botha, and my mom and business partner at the time, Maureen van Latum, stood with me handing out the flyers and sweets in the traffic that was leaving Sunninghill Gardens in the early hours of that Tuesday morning. It was raining, but that did not deter us.”
And just like that, she won the hearts of many adoring fans of Halloween parties on her first attempt. She kept getting bigger and better ideas for the next Halloween party. She recalled some of her favourites. “The ‘Day of the Dead’, ‘Zombie Land’, and finally, ‘Stranger Things’ last year, which turned out to be the biggest production yet. I started five weeks prior to Halloween in my 50m² garage, creating the backdrops and all the props.”
The rest, as they say, is history. She said the past 18 years of hosting Halloween parties for the benefit of the community was quite a journey.
“It has always been fun, creative, stressful, exhausting, expensive and extremely rewarding. The faces of the children, teenagers and parents are something that inspired me to go bigger and better each year.”
She said she decided to stop hosting the parties because of her youngest child who moved to Holland.
“I thought, this is a perfect time to travel and be free.”
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