East County Times Oct. 16, 2008

Witches, goblins and ghouls will be haunting the Redman-Pocahontas Hall near Live Oak Avenue this weekend as the group presents their third annual Halloween Festival. The Saturday night event will feature their popular haunted house with new features to fit this year’s theme of witches and goblins.
“We change it every year so the kids will find something new each time,” said organizer and Pocahontas member Irene Martinez. Martinez said that the group has worked hard to make the haunted house for all age groups using live props to make the display as calm or scary as the kids going through want it to be.
“When the younger ones go through we just let the people volunteering inside know so that they can act accordingly,” she said.
This year the Pocahontas committee were lucky enough to receive a grant from the city of Oakley to help pay for some added attractions to the event. “The grant was for $350 and we were told we were to use $200 for prizes and decorations and $150 for advertising,” Martinez said. She said she didn’t mind the money designation because the group was hoping to do more advertising for the event this year. They also received sponsorships from other sources including Staples of Pittsburg, which donated 3,000 photocopies and a raffle prize from Oakley’s downtown hobby shop, Kit and Caboodle.
The evening’s events will also feature carnival games for kids of all ages including bowling spider, fortune telling and ghost games. They will also feature a movie room where kids can watch a few Halloween favorites like “Hocus Pocus” and “The Witches.” There will also be a raffle drawing every half hour.
The $1 entrance fee will provide for six game tickets, a raffle ticket, entrance to the haunted house, candy and a toy. For every entrance, 50 cents goes to the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation.
“Every year the person crowned Pocahontas picks a cause to donate money to. The year the Pocahontas picked the Diabetes Foundation so we have been raising money for the cause all year. In January a new Pocahontas will pick her favorite cause,” Martinez said.
The group also works to raise funds for other worthy causes throughout the year including the national group’s cause, the Alzheimer's Association, as well as veterans associations. Last week, ladies from the Pocahontas group, including Martinez, attended a special tour of the Veterans Hospital in Martinez and decided that they were interested in adding the facility to their new list of causes.
“It was really much more than I first thought,” Martinez said. She was surprised to see a number of U.S. soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in attendance at the hospital. There were also a number of veterans from other conflicts and wars present. She said she found that the hospital was in need of donations that would make the recovery of the soldiers, both young and old, more comfortable. The Pocahontas is working on hosting a New Year’s Eve Casino to raise funds for the group.
The Halloween Festival will take place Saturday evening from 7 to 10 p.m. The Redman-Pocahontas Hall is located at 1405 Main Street near Live Oak Avenue.