Unlike Stephen King’s thriller, Barton Rural School’s children of the corn are doing their scaring for a good cause.
The school’s annual A’maize’n Maze fundraiser opened on Friday night last week.
Hundreds navigated their way through a 6ha maize maze on the outskirts of Timaru.
Organised by the home and school committee, the fundraiser has run for the last three years, and takes place from Friday to Sunday over two weekends.
The event features both a horror-filled scare maze which runs Friday and Saturday nights, and a more relaxed daytime maze experience on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Committee member Malcolm Coles said despite the weekend rain, the event got off to a good start.
‘‘We had approximately 450 people come through over the weekend so although we lost most of Saturday, we still had a really good weekend.
‘‘Sunday was crazy — we just had people coming and going all day really and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.’’
The money raised through the event would go directly into the home and school account to be used on things such as sporting equipment and other extra items for the school.
The idea for the fundraiser first came from a parent at the school, and it literally grew from there.
‘‘George Steven, who has a child at the school, grows the maize and said he had heard it was a good fundraiser, so we just go up there and use his paddock.
‘‘We only marked it out three weeks ago — we have a civil engineer who designs it for us and uses GPS to mark out the route.
‘‘It’s all pretty high-tech.
‘‘Every year the maze is different, quite a bit of work goes in to it.
‘‘It’s a good wee fundraiser for us.’’
Last year, 1800 people tackled the maze.
There was an extra night also held to raise money for those impacted by the floods in Napier.
It was great to see some of the pupils getting involved, he said.
‘‘The kids love to help out, but to help with the night time scare events they have to be around that 12-year-old mark and be with a parent.’’
The maze is located on the corner of George Ward and Fairview Rds, and will be open for scare nights on Friday and Saturday from 7.30pm to 9pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 3pm for the daytime maze.
The day maze is $5 per adult and $3 per child 15 years and under, while the scare maze is $5 per person.
