A heart for the holidays: Mission woman decorates home to benefit community
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As you walk up the pathway leading to Connie Pierce’s doorstep, witches and masked skeletons come alive. Awnings and sheds are filled with macabre decorations, and inside the house, a living room inhabited by human-size mechanical ghouls.
These decorations are all part of Pierce’s annual tribute to Halloween, a holiday she loves to share not only with her family, but also with the community.
For the past 10 years, on each Halloween and Christmas, Pierce has invited the community, local Head Starts and preschools inside her home. The children are able to roam Pierce’s spooky yard and living room, and they receive candy and a little prize or two when they leave.
“She is so great and awesome,” said Nick White, a teacher at St. Ignatius Head Start. “The children really enjoy it.”
The children are why Pierce has continued to host the public year after year.
“I just really like to make sure the kids have something to do with their families,” Pierce said. “Making children happy makes me happy.”
Pierce does not ask for donations and has used her own money to buy the hundreds of decorations on her property.
The past couple of years she has started to give out bigger prizes for the best Halloween costumes.This year she gave out two Xboxes and an iPad. These prizes were awarded to families and individuals.
This year Stuart Morton and Rod’s Harvest Foods donated the small Halloween trinkets.
“I (give out big prizes) so that people participate as families,” Pierce said. “About 90 percent of those who participated were families, so it worked out really well.”
Pierce’s daughter Windi Orr remembers family involvement being a priority in their household growing up. Orr said her mother used to volunteer to chaperone every field trip or prom when she was younger.
“She is a very giving person,” Orr said. “(When we were) kids she was very involved.”
Now that Halloween has past, Pierce and her two daughters-in-law who help her decorate will soon take down the scary and put up the merry.
“Christmas is a lot bigger,” daughter-in-law Wendy Orr said.
Orr said if the weather is not too cold in coming weeks, the yard and house would soon be filled with reindeers, Santas and Christmas lights.
For Christmas, Pierce has someone dress as Santa and give out gifts to children.
Again, Pierce finances all this on her own, but says it is worth it for the children.
“It’s just who she is; she never asks for anything,” Windi said.
