“Boys and girls of every age

“Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?

“Come with us and you will see

“This, our town of Halloween.”

Just like the movie “Nightmare Before Christmas,” a Nesquehoning man is again transforming his property into a place where ghouls and goblins lurk, 12-foot skeletons stand guard over real tombstones and 20-foot blowup Jack Skellington’s watch the land.

But this year, Alan Kloss is aiming to help the students of Panther Valley by collecting donations from people who visit his display along Seventh Avenue in the Hauto Valley Estates portion of Nesquehoning.

“My kid started going to the school this year and we ended up seeing that they were pushing for people to do donations,” Kloss said, noting that he had seen Lowe’s helped the school recently with a renovation project. “So I was like this is something for the kids and some of the stuff (in the display) is from Lowe’s so let’s try and do something for the school.”

Kloss contacted Panther Valley officials and got approval to start a donation collection at his display. He set out a collection box for anyone who would like to donate.

Items he is collecting includes antibacterial soap, Band-Aids, boxes of tissues, disinfectant wipes, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, napkins, paper towels, plastic spoons, cases of bottled water, nonperishable and individually wrapped snacks, basketballs, alphabet bingo game, playground balls, puzzles for ages 5-8, soccer balls, colored pencils, construction paper, crayons, crepe paper, drawing paper, dry erase markers, foam cutouts, glue sticks, No. 2 pencils, tape, stickers, tissue paper, waterpaints and white board markers.

“Aside from doing this,”Kloss said of his Halloween display. “People get to enjoy this and help out in a good way. It’s more engagement and it’s giving back to the kids.”

New to his display this year are real, granite tombstones.

“I really pushed forward with it this year,” he said. “As far as I know, I’m the only person who has every actually incorporated real headstones into a display. I’m pretty proud of that because it’s breaking boundaries and going above and beyond for the visitors.” Across the street, Kloss’ neighbor, with his permission, is also aiming to help the community.

In addition to a donation drive for Panther Valley, Lois Kuba has bins out for Carbon County Animal Shelter and Carbon County Friends of Animals.

Kuba commended Kloss on his initiative to use his display to help the school, and thanked him for allowing her to also put out bins for the cats and dogs.

“If we can get anything for both shelters and for the kids, it’s a win-win,” Kuba said. “It’s great because there is a lot of traffic and the display is awesome.

“If we could do it as a community event, we’re hoping for a lot of traffic,” she added.

Kloss said that the Halloween display will be up weather permitting on weekends from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. If it is raining, he can’t put out the animatronics; while if it is windy, he can’t put up the inflatables.

Anyone who would like to visit the display can do so, but Kloss asks that they remain on the street. Taking photos is also welcome.