A Ballantyne homeowner has spent months and thousands of dollars turning her property into a trick-or-treat destination with a cause behind the cobwebs. The Halloween House of Charlotte, run by Dina DiMartino at 15631 Ballantyne Country Club Drive, opens for trick-or-treating at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through wand sales and QR-code donations.
DiMartino is the homeowner behind the display, according to WSOC-TV, and she chose St. Jude because she wanted a charity people could feel good about, seeing Halloween as a natural fit given the hospital's focus on children. The station reports she expects many visitors again this Saturday, a turnout she's preparing for after last year's display drew enough children that traffic backed up through the neighborhood.
Crowd Control Becomes Part of the Planning
That kind of turnout comes with logistics most front-yard decorators never have to think about. DiMartino hired two off-duty police officers to help manage crowds this year, per the same WSOC-TV report, a step that underscores just how much the project has grown since she first started building it months ago at a cost of thousands of dollars.
Visitors who stop by can support St. Jude in two ways: buying a wand at the display or scanning a QR code to donate directly. Channel 9 partners annually with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for a Dream Home Giveaway, and ticket sales from that broader effort often raise millions of dollars for the hospital's work, the station notes. St. Jude itself says the mission behind all of it is straightforward, ensuring families do not have to pay for their child's cancer treatment.
A Growing Pattern of Homegrown Fundraising
The Ballantyne display's exact fundraising total has not been reported. But it fits a wider pattern of homeowners around North Carolina turning Halloween decorating into charity work for St. Jude. In Holly Springs, the Robertson family has turned its elaborate decorations into a St. Jude fundraiser for five years, part of what ABC11 describes as the Skeletons for St. Jude network. A separate Holly Springs household raised $5,000 through its own Halloween house display, with about 80 donations, after an initial $3,000 goal that the family came close to hitting within roughly 48 hours, ABC11 reported in an earlier story on that fundraiser.
In Trinity, North Carolina, Wendy Sprouse has filled her yard with monsters, ghosts and creepy clowns for six years to support the same hospital, according to CBS17. Visitors there can scan QR codes placed outside the homes to send donations directly to St. Jude, the outlet notes, a setup similar to the one DiMartino has built into her own Ballantyne display.
How the Network Has Scaled Nationally
The Skeletons for St. Jude effort has grown substantially since it began, expanding from a single participating house in 2020 to 681 homes by 2024, according to St. Jude's own account. More recent figures for the network vary by source: ABC11 reported the effort was on track to raise over $1 million in 2025 and had expanded to nearly 1,000 participating homes nationwide, while Good Good Good reported the network had already raised more than $1.1 million to date, with 625 homes set to join this year's haunt and organizers aiming for a $2 million goal in the project's seventh year.
Separately, in St. George, Utah, the Mays family has spent between $30,000 and $40,000 over eight years building a haunted-house display that began as a family project in 2018 and grew into a local tradition, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Through their nonprofit, Pancakes and Love, donors can direct contributions to causes listed on its website. DiMartino's Ballantyne display invites neighbors to visit and support St. Jude.
For now, the plan in Ballantyne is simple. Doors open for trick-or-treating at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at 15631 Ballantyne Country Club Drive, wands will be for sale, and QR codes will be posted for anyone who wants to give directly. St. Jude says every dollar helps ensure that families never receive a bill from the hospital for treatment, travel, housing or food.
