Ring the Bell, Run, Then Toilet-Paper the Trees: A Bloomington Couple's Halloween Gift to Charity

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - From 7 to 9:30 each evening between Oct. 10 and Oct. 30, Shane and LeAnn Tanenbaum invite the families of Bloomington to do exactly what children are usually told not to do: ring their doorbell and run. Mr. Tanenbaum, 40, answers on cue, shaking a cane and shouting after the culprits. This year the couple added a second offer. Anyone who brings their own toilet paper and donates at least $20 to one of four local charities gets five uninterrupted minutes to drape the couple's front-yard trees before he comes out yelling, the Indiana Daily Student reported.

The performance is delivered, in the words of a Facebook post Mr. Tanenbaum wrote on Oct. 7, "with Oscar-worthy commitment." When a father and his two young children struck on the evening of Oct. 17, the season's first scheduled toilet-papering, the student newspaper's reporter watched the children fling rolls into the trees while their father pounded on the door and sprinted back to the car. Mr. Tanenbaum emerged on schedule. "Hey, come back here," he yelled as they drove off. "Don't y'all have something better to do, like playing the Donkey Kong's? Don't come back here."

The father told the paper his children had never ding-dong ditched or toilet-papered anything before and had been nervous about getting in trouble. They were not nervous for long. "I had so much fun," the younger child, who is 6, told the paper. "I got to put toilet paper in a tree and I made it two times."

The donations go to Susie's Place Child Advocacy Centers, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Bloomington, Beacon or the Bloomington Animal Shelter. Participants give directly to the charity and send Mr. Tanenbaum a screenshot of the receipt, and he schedules a time. Ding-dong ditching remains free.

"It just comes from a place of wanting to provide a little bit of help to these community organizations, but also give families a safe place to make memories and have fun," Ms. Tanenbaum said. "And what's more fun than throwing toilet paper at some strangers tree?"

As of Monday, Oct. 19, the effort had raised $240, with $120 of it going to Susie's Place, a southern Indiana child advocacy organization, Mr. Tanenbaum told the paper. Cathy Stoll, its chief development officer, said the organization had not known about the event but welcomed it. "We always love it," she said. "When the communities that we serve support us, so that's always a beautiful thing."

The choice of charities is personal. Susie's Place conducts forensic interviews with children moving through the child welfare system or out of neglect or abuse, Ms. Tanenbaum said. "So, from my background, that means a lot to us." The couple told the paper they came from difficult childhood homes, and that when they began building a life together they wanted "to be the adults that we needed when we were kids."

The doorbell game is only the latest in a string of projects. From 2020 to 2023 the Tanenbaums ran Rise Above Bag, which gave children going through trauma, such as foster care or a parent's separation, backpacks packed with essentials. They paid for it by selling their furniture, their jewelry and even their bed, and distributed 286 bags across several counties, they said. From 2021 to 2024 they ran Halloween Reimagined, a costume library at American Rental, the Bloomington rental store where they work, buying about 600 new costumes to stock it. Since 2023, Mr. Tanenbaum has hosted The Listening Table, sitting at a table somewhere in town and listening to whoever joins him.

The ditching tradition began after the couple bought their home two years ago. Mr. Tanenbaum wanted to play ding-dong ditch with his son, then 13, who was too afraid of getting caught. "So, Shane said, 'What if we give kids and their parents a way to do this and make memories in a safe place?'" Ms. Tanenbaum recalled. "They don't have to worry about getting in trouble or getting the cops called." Eleven ditchers came by last year, Mr. Tanenbaum said.

There is no age limit. "We would love to see college kids, high school kids, young couples, old couples," Ms. Tanenbaum said. The couple plans to keep the tradition going as long as they live in the house, though they expect to move it earlier in the year so families have more daylight. She does not expect any single evening to change much. "Hopefully it's something that lingers and teaches kiddos that the smallest things stick around, the smallest things stay, the smallest things impact people's lives," she said.

Sources: Indiana Daily Student, Zoe Reed, Oct. 19, 2026: https://www.idsnews.com/article/2026/10/bloomington-charity-halloween-kids-ding-dong-ditch ; Gorge News Center, Oct. 24, 2026: https://gorgenewscenter.com/2026/10/24/couple-invites-neighbors-to-toilet-paper-their-house-for-charity/ . The fundraising total is as of Oct. 19; a later figure could not be confirmed. Those who wish to take part are asked to contact Shane Tanenbaum through Facebook. All images are illustrative, freely licensed photos from Wikimedia Commons.