Brandy and Richard Harp are not afraid to jump in and lead efforts to put on a fundraising event -- especially when they expect the event to be frightfully fun.
The Harps' first time at Monster Bash, a costume party fundraiser for Home for Healing in Little Rock, was last year. This year they are co-chairmen.
The time for this year's Monster Bash is creeping closer -- the event will begin at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 28, at the Venue at Westwind in North Little Rock.
Organizers hope Monster Bash will raise enough money to cover one third of the annual cost of operations for Home for Healing, a Little Rock nonprofit that offers support and inexpensive lodging for the parents of babies in neonatal intensive care units, teenage and adult cancer patients and their caregivers and people who have loved ones in the intensive care unit.
Richard went to high school with Kristin Trulock, Home for Healing's executive director. Brandy met her by chance, when they were at a Little Rock Chamber of Commerce women's luncheon.
"It was one of those situations where I got there early -- and I'm normally not early," she says. "And Kristin also got there early. We were way early, as in she and I were the first ones there."
They made small talk.
"I'm tall and she's tall and we talked about clothes and pants," says Brandy, who is principal broker at Jon Underhill Real Estate. "Home for Healing was nominated for an award, I think for best nonprofit, and I was nominated for a woman-owned business."
Toward the end of the program, there were videos highlighting each company or organization.
"I'm sitting there watching and learning about Home for Healing and what an amazing place it is, and it really resonated with me," she says.
Home for Healing offers not just rooms but also the things that offer comfort -- kitchens stocked with all the basics, TVs with movies, games and decks of cards to pass the time, laundry room and supplies and, for new moms, a breast pump and a freezer for breast milk. There are also opportunities for haircuts, oncology facials and free wigs.
"I own a real estate company and my husband builds and remodels homes, so we totally get the importance of your home being a safe place for you to come to," Brandy says.
When Brandy told Richard she wanted to go to Monster Bash after meeting Trulock last year, he was all for it.
"It's been kind of an inside joke that he's begged me to go to Halloween parties and dress up since we met," she says. "We've been married for 22 years and I've never gone to a Halloween party and I've never dressed up."
Richard grew up in Little Rock's St. Charles subdivision and has fond memories of Halloweens spent there.
"It was always some sort of a costume and I would grab a pillowcase, and there were several hundred houses and we would just go and go until people started turning their porch lights off and that was our sign to go home," he says.
Halloweens since have focused on the Harp children, now 14 and 16.
"It's been a cookout here at the house, and when the kids were younger we would do a couple of loops around the neighborhood or go visit our friends in their neighborhood because they had a little hayride going," he says. "But it's normally very low-key, and this -- Monster Bash -- is an adult party, obviously. I don't think we've ever had an adult party for Halloween."
The Harps recruited friends from their supper club to go with them, all in costumes from the movie "Grease." This year, the Harps and their friends will wear superhero costumes.
"Our supper club best friends, they volunteered to chair Monster Bash next year," Brandy says. "And we are going to Manzanillo -- we bought the trip that was one of the auction items -- on vacation together."
There will be live and silent auctions again this year, as well as music by Jet420.
Monster Bash is sold out this year and there is a waiting list. Tickets are $50-100 and cover cocktails, including a new signature drink by Tito, and heavy hors d'oeuvres. Lisa Fischer and Roger Scott will emcee the event, and Poolboy will judge the costume contest.
Gary Dean will be honored with the Community Impact Award, and Larry West will be given the Heart of the Home Award for his support of Home for Healing.
Trulock invited the Harps to tour Home for Healing last year. Seeing it, and meeting some of the people who have found respite there, sealed the deal for the Harps.
"We love being in the home. If you have a bad day and you want to go and have a complete life perspective change, go and volunteer at the Home for Healing," Brandy says. "It is such a positive place that these people are so grateful to have. They're having major life-threatening crises, and to find just that place where they can restore their minds and heal or get treatment ... it's just an incredible place."
More information about Home for Healing is at homeforhealing.org.