St. Jude supporter remembers girl with cancer, helps others like her through Skeletons for St. Jude fundraiser

It’s been four years now, but Jeff Robertson of Holly Springs, North Carolina, can still see her face. She’s little, only about 2 years old, certainly no older than 4, and still strapped in her car seat. While all the adults around her are crying or, like Robertson, just barely holding it together, she’s laughing at the skeletons on his lawn.

Robertson was recently retired from the Army and admitted it had been hard to shake “an emptiness that I didn’t have when serving our nation, doing something bigger than myself. 

“I was looking for a purpose in my life.”

That October of 2020, he went “a little overboard” on Halloween decorations. It had been a lark to decorate his home to the hilt, something he figured he’d do maybe once. 

Then a local TV station did a story about Robertson’s over-the-top Halloween home, and the cars filing by seemed to multiply. 

“That night we had a family huddle and said, ‘This is kind of cool that we’re on the news, but you know, let’s kind of take the spotlight off of us. Like, how can we use this for good?’”  

Jeff’s family had been dedicated St. Jude Partners In Hope monthly donors for several years as an act of charitable service.

“We all agreed that we should start a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.”  

Meanwhile, the little girl’s parents had seen the news broadcast and knew they wanted to visit the Halloween house with their daughter, a St. Jude patient going through cancer treatment.

The young family had no idea that, in the time between the broadcast and the moment they got to Robertson’s home, the Halloween house had been turned into a fundraiser for St. Jude.  

The young parents had been looking for meaning in all of this, and here was the St. Jude donation sign right on Jeff Robertson’s lawn.

When you get caught off guard like that, the tears tend to flow. It was pre-vaccine COVID, so people were cautious, but this young dad pulled over, got out of his car, went up to Robertson’s door and knocked. When Robertson came to the door, the young dad stood there crying and told his story. 

This thing you’re doing, this fundraiser for St. Jude, it’s helping my daughter, the dad explained. 

He ushered Robertson to the car to meet his family. 

“The mom was crying,” Robertson said, “and I looked at this little girl, and she’s smiling from ear to ear. … These skeletons, as weird as they are, you know. She’s like sitting there for that moment in time, she’s forgotten about everything, and she’s laughing at everything that she sees.” 

He doesn’t remember their names and has no way to contact them. But that was the moment. That was it. That’s when Robertson knew that he wouldn’t stop. That he’d decorate the next year and the next for St. Jude. And he’d try to get everyone he could find to do the same.  

He had found his purpose in St. Jude.

He joined Halloween-enthusiast social media pages and spread the word about his idea. People gave advice and logistical support to make his good idea even better.  

Perfect strangers, such as Mark Kozik, helped take up the cause and have since become good friends. 

“Mark Kozik contacted me out of the blue in 2022 and offered to help build, design and manage a website for our nationwide effort at no cost to me or anyone else,” Robertson said. “Without Mark, we wouldn't be able to do what we are doing on this scale. …This is truly a team effort.” 

Just four years after Robertson saw the laughter of that little girl from St. Jude, his Skeletons for St. Jude fundraiser has grown to more than 1,000 families across the U.S. Robertson provides everything they need to get started: a file so they can print out the sign with the QR code, a press release for local media and talking points. 

Neighbor helping neighbor; that’s what St. Jude is all about. 

The Skeletons for St. Jude families decorate their homes and urge people to scan the QR code to make a donation to St. Jude. They’ve raised more than $19,000 so far this year with more than a month until Halloween. 

They’ve raised $656,000 since 2020 when the fundraiser began. “Our goal is to break the $1 million mark by Halloween next year,” Robertson said. 

It’s all because of that little girl from St. Jude that Robertson can’t stop wondering about. 

Each Halloween, he finds himself looking for the family’s car outside his home, hoping they might drive by. 

“It would be awesome to see them again.”