Hundreds of student volunteers are at the heart of Liberty University’s thrilling Scaremare

By day, Liberty University senior Caio Paiva socializes with his peers and attends classes, but by night in October, he steps into a frightening character for Liberty’s annual Scaremare.

In past years, Paiva has portrayed a clown, a scarecrow, and creatures in the woods. This year he is the recurring character and staple of Scaremare — the Demented Bunny. Paiva, a criminal justice student, said volunteering in all of these roles helped him “come out of his shell” more.

“It brings out a fun side of me that at first I didn’t know I had, but now I do,” he said.

Paiva is one of the 600-800 student volunteers who have brought the House of Death to life every year.

Scaremare was started by youth pastors at Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1972 as a creative fall outreach. As the event grew, Liberty’s Center for Youth Ministries, now under the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, began facilitating the event as a way to equip and train students with practical outreach opportunities for the community. Since its inception, Scaremare has attracted over half a million people from Central Virginia and up and down the East Coast.

Scaremare opens this Thursday, Oct. 10, at 2300 Carroll Ave. in Lynchburg and will run for the remaining weekends in October. Tickets can be purchased at the door with cash; group passes can be purchased online.

This year’s theme is “escape the shadow’s reach.”

“What Satan wants to do is he wants to draw us in; he wants to draw us into the shadows,” said Director of Scaremare and School of Divinity Assistant Professor Joshua Coldren. “Our hope for Scaremare is that we would help people to see that you don’t need to be drawn into the shadows of Satan. You need to be pulled into the light of Christ and the hope that’s found in Him.”

Participants will walk through over 20 rooms that present death and mortality, where student volunteers — clothed in scary costumes — act out various scenes and characters. From makeup artists to actors and Gospel presenters, students are at the very heart of Scaremare.

This year marks Paiva’s fourth year of being a student volunteer and gaining Christian/Community Service (CSER) credit hours for his work with Scaremare. Since he was a freshman, Paiva has volunteered as a cast member and helped lead crowds of people through scenes of death and into a relationship with Christ.

“I love hearing that people are coming to Christ even though it’s through the scary, spooky, clown-ridden, skeleton-filled mill that we made the house (into),” he said. “I just love to hear about people making those important decisions and taking that step in their lives.”

The directors give updates every night on how many people heard from the Gospel presenters and came to Christ.

Sarah Dickerson, a sophomore business student double majoring in entrepreneurship and healthcare management, is in her second season volunteering at Scaremare. She plays a stilt-walking character.

“My favorite part about volunteering at Scaremare is that you get to work with people who are on fire for the Lord and want to spread the Gospel in the unique way that Scaremare is,” she said.

Victoria Erdmann, a senior studying graphic design, was a student volunteer for two years. This year, she is one of two assistant creative directors.

“When I was a student volunteer, I was around the line area most of the time, so being able to see all the people with their families and their friends coming to enjoy a fun fall event for the season was really great,” she said. “To know that this event has been going on for over 50 years, it feels like I’m helping carry on a tradition. We are a ministry first and foremost, and (volunteering) is not something that you need to be afraid of just because (the event) happens during a scarier season of time.”

Chandler Robinson, the creative director of Scaremare and a Liberty theater arts production alumna, also started out as a student volunteer 10 years ago.

“Every aspect of Scaremare is fully student driven. We are the bus drivers, but they are the engine. It couldn’t happen without them,” said Robinson, who prays over each student’s costume in preparation for opening. “Having been a student myself, some of my very closest friends came from my freshman year of Scaremare. It’s not just for CSER; you are also gaining confidence in yourself and friendships along the way.”

In recent years visitors have walked through the House of Death, a building that used to operate as a community and daycare center decades prior to being purchased by Liberty to use for Scaremare. Last year, the building started undergoing repairs, and they moved the event down the street to The Mill, an old and ominous two-story building filled with themed rooms. Over the past 10 years, they used the top floor of The Mill in addition to the House of Death for the scary rooms, and the bottom floor of the building was used for Gospel presentations. Due to no longer using the house, they are filling both floors at The Mill with themed rooms and moving the Gospel presentations to tents outside.

“As sad as we were to not be able to use the house, (at The Mill) we took rooms that people have loved forever and expanded on them,” Robinson said. “This is brand new; we can do whatever we want, so we should try big ideas.”

Though Robinson and her team are building on new ideas, they still have familiar fan-favorites like the strobe room, the dark maze, and an expanded cabin section spanning multiple rooms. The cabin room was their best hit last year, so they are bringing it back bigger and better.

Even with all the scary fun, Robinson said the students take Scaremare seriously as a ministry, and many times, she will walk in a room to find the students praying with each other.

“I feel like that’s something that’s such a Liberty thing,” she said. “Unprompted, students are supporting each other in that specific way. It’s amazing.”

“Every single student’s (role), from working in the parking lot to being in a room and doing a jump scare, it all points back to sharing the Gospel,” Coldren added. “It comes back to Scaremare helping not only to reach people with the Gospel, but also helping to train students on how to share the Gospel.”