Local mom shares her love of ShelterCare, hospitalized kids, and zombies

Presenter: A local mom is celebrating her favorite holiday and helping to raise money for the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Whitney Taylor:

Whitney Taylor: I just, I really like Halloween. It’s like my favorite holiday out of the year. My whole front porch is decked out, like, my kids get decked out. I do my makeup and, you know, dress up for the zombie run. So I’m the zombie that jumps out of bushes and scares people. It’s fun, it’s fun. Except for the little kids. We don’t like to scare the little kids. We usually just go and sit down on the path and like high-five them and let them know that we’re just there for fun.

[00:00:35] Presenter: Whitney’s participating for the first time in a national contest, Face of Halloween, and she’s in second place.

[00:00:43] Whitney Taylor: We send in photos of our makeup or costumes. We also take what we’ve done for the community. You know, like, I volunteer every year for Halloween for Run for Your Life, for the zombie 5K run here in Eugene for ShelterCare.

[00:01:03] I’m currently in second. They asked us to reach out to local news places to see if we can get people to buy votes. And when you buy votes, all the proceeds go to the Starlight Children’s Foundation to help the families that are struggling through getting their kids well or better. You know, people’s donations helping the children and their family get through the hard times of being there; entertains the kids, so like video games and stuff for them to do while they’re in the hospital.

[00:01:41] Presenter: Whitney said she herself had a few family members in the hospital this month.

[00:01:46] Whitney Taylor: And it kind of hits home for me because my grandson was in the hospital, got out of heart surgery three days ago. He’s only two, so he’s just a little guy. Having heart surgery is kind of a scary thing.

[00:01:57] The day of his surgery, I was a wreck, I felt like. I didn’t want to go down there and be with my son because I didn’t want to freak him out, but he’s just a little guy. Yeah, we’ve just been dealing with that and my mom was in the hospital too, and so it’s just been kind of rough this week, but everybody’s fine, so that’s good news.

[00:02:18] And it’s funny because I have a son that’s two months younger than him. So he’s the uncle, but I’m curious to find out how ornery Jack’s going to be now that he’s going to have full energy.

[00:02:30] I have a 19-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-and-a-half-year-old. And then my grandson being two, and another grandson that’s nine months old. All boys, all boys. I’m definitely outnumbered.

[00:02:43] But yeah, I’m currently in second place, and at one point I was in first place, so I know that I’m not far behind first place. The next cut is all the first places of each group, and then they group us again, and then it’s the quarterfinals, where they’ll split us down again.

[00:03:02] You know, it goes for a good cause and who doesn’t enjoy dressing up and doing some stuff for Halloween? I do. It’s right along my line of stuff.

[00:03:12] Presenter: Whitney says you can vote for her and  help bring happiness to hospitalized children at the contest website.

[00:03:19] Whitney Taylor: The QR code is the easiest one, you scan it and it takes you right there. If not, then there’s the ‘Face of Halloween’ link that has my name after it. So mine is FaceOfHalloween.org/2025/Whitney-Taylor. It’s lowercase whitney-taylor.

[00:03:44] Presenter: You can check out Whitney’s zombie photos and cast a free vote or donate for hospitalized children and their families.