We recently connected with Jacob Bartlett and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jacob thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

There’s no shortage of charitable organizations that we could be helping. One thing that the Circle City Ghostbusters has always strived to do, however, is to focus our fundraising efforts on local charities. They may not have the name recognition that bigger groups do, but we have always felt like we’d like to make a more local impact. In this regard, we have seen first hand how our contributions have helped.

One of our favorite organizations to raise money for is the Dayspring Center. The Dayspring Center is a homeless shelter here in Indianapolis that focuses on getting struggling families back on their feet. One of the most special things about working with the Dayspring Center is that they are so immensely grateful for what we do for them. They share our contributions on social media, they invite us to be a part of their fundraising events, and we have developed personal connections with the staff there.

The greatest and most sobering experience I’ve had with the shelter is when we did a visit there in the summer of 2018. Ernie Hudson, the actor who played Winston Zeddemore in the Ghostbusters movies, was coming to Indianapolis for a convention. Our group reached out to him and asked if he would like to join us for a charitable event outside of the con, to which he agreed. His only stipulation was he would like to visit somewhere with children. We reached out to the Dayspring Center and they informed us that they were currently hosting their summer camp for disadvantaged youth called Camp Discovery and would love to have a Ghostbusters Day. Mr Hudson agreed, so the morning of the first day of the convention, we visited the Dayspring Center with Mr. Hudson.

While we had a lot of fun that day visiting the center, doing activities with the kids, and watching them excitedly meeting a celebrity. It was also, as I said, very sobering. The amount of kids affected by homelessness is such a terrible thing. According to the Dayspring Center’s website, the average age of a homeless person in the United States is 7 years old.

We ultimately raised over $5,000 for the Dayspring Center in June of 2018, including a $1,000 donation from Mr. Hudson and another $1,000 donation from Ivan Reitman, the director of the Ghostbusters movies, matching Mr. Hudson’s donation. That money had a real and large impact on the Dayspring Center. They even list our group as Community Partners on their website as a result. Occasionally, I like to go to their website and check out their success stories section. It’s a reminder of the impact our group contributes to and how the energy of dressing up and having fun can be converted into something more meaningful.

Jacob, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As far back as I can remember, I was a Ghostbusters fan. Born in 1986, the year The Real Ghostbusters animated series began, I suppose it was always inevitable for me to be one. Growing up in the Bartlett household, you’d likely find my brothers and me running around with our toy proton packs and mom-made jumpsuits (if we weren’t being Turtles or Power Rangers that day).

Also as I grew up, I learned about the power of doing good and the impact it can have on a community. My grandfather Tom Bartlett taught me the value of generosity. My grandmother Nancy Turner taught me the value of giving back to a community.

When I became a parent, I knew I wanted to set these examples for my children as well. I had already been participating in cosplay for a few years and making connections in the Indianapolis community. Ghostbusters costuming was always the endgame for me in that regard. I had followed the Indiana Ghostbusters back in the Aughts before that group faded away and was a fan of the Circle City Ghostbusters after having met the group at Indy Pop Con back in 2014. I had been slowly assembling my own Ghostbusters costume and by 2016, I was ready to join up with them.

One of my earliest events with the group was Indy Pop Con 2016. While there, I helped run a charity raffle by doing a play “Psychic Test” much like the one Bill Murray performed at the beginning of the first Ghostbusters movie (don’t worry, we weren’t shocking people). I was immediately hooked on utilizing the fun of Ghostbusters to do good. We raised a few hundred dollars that weekend for Child Advocates and were invited to their Superhero Walk as a result. I was immediately addicted to the feeling giving back gave me.

Over the years, our group grew and so did our ability to do good in our community. We went from just another Ghostbusters group in a flyover state to being considered one of the best examples of a Ghostbusters costuming and charity group in the world. We were noticed by local organizations like The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (which is consistently voted the best children’s museum in the USA) and invited to take part in their fundraising events. We were noticed by Ivan Reitman’s production company, Ghost Corps, and invited out to premieres of the new Ghostbusters movies. This year, the City of Indianapolis proclaimed June 8th to be Circle City Ghostbusters Day in recognition of all we have done for our community. It’s been an absolutely wild ride.

During this time, I was considered a leader of the group alongside one of its founders, Nic Farnsworth. When the time came to put a proper leadership structure in place to obtain our 501(c)(3) status, Nic was the first group president and I was the first vice president. After two years as president, Nic settled into a quartermaster role and I took over as president, which I am today.

As the president of the group, I oversee everything we do from in character, entertaining social media posts to donating thousands of dollars to local charitable organizations. What was once a hobby has now morphed into a part-time, albeit unpaid, job. In that regard, this has been the most rewarding job I’ve ever had (unless you count being a father as a job, of course). I’ve made friendships doing this that will last a lifetime. I’ve been able to see the impact of the good I’ve done in real time. I’ve been able to unite people of different genders, religions, incomes, races, political affiliations, whatever to show that we can do more together than apart.

I have also become fairly well known in the overall Ghostbusters fan community. I’ve given advice to lots of other groups, whether they’re just starting up or have been doing costuming for a while and want advice, on how to be an effective force for charity. I have also designed a few group’s logos and have done other art for groups like the Windy City Ghostbusters and Daytona Beach Ghostbusters. This year, along with Bob Anderson of the Windy City Ghostbusters, Ryan Espin of the New York City Ghostbusters, and Peter Natale of the Hudson Valley Ghostbusters, I helped launch whoyagonnacall.org, a website dedicated to helping people find the Ghostbusters group(s) in their local area.

The thing I am most proud of, though, goes back to the example I wanted to set for my own children that got me into this in the first place. I am proud to say that they see the value in service to their community and happily take part in many of our charitable events as “Junior Ghostbusters.” I adore my two little girls and seeing them excitedly giving back lets me know that they are on the right path to becoming not only good citizens, but the good people I hoped they would end up being from the day they were born.

Any advice for managing a team?

Being a leader both in my professional day job and my hobby-turned job of being a Ghostbuster, I can tell you the best way to keep morale high is to go to the Golden Rule: Treat others how you would like to be treated. Cut people the same slack you wanted to be cut. If you see someone hungry for opportunity, give it to them. Have fun!

I promise you, you’ll not only make friends of your team, gaining their loyalty and trust, but you’ll get better results out of them.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’m not sure anyone will tell a story about resilience post-2020 without mentioning the COVID-19 pandemic, so why fight it?

The Circle City Ghostbusters’ model of giving back to our community consisted of doing fundraisers at conventions or festivals and making appearances at charitable events. Both of those became impossible when we weren’t allowed to gather during the pandemic. After a few weeks of “It’ll be over in a week” which morphed to “It’ll be over in a month” which morphed to “We don’t know when it’ll be over,” I decided I needed to scratch that itch of wanting to give back.

The group had about 20 members at that point. I organized an internal fundraiser and asked members to give what they could. Using the money we scrounged together, I hit up Costco with a list of needs from the Dayspring Center. One of our members, Jeff Himes, used his pandemic-found free time to transform his daily driver into an Ectomobile for our group. A small group of us, masked and gloved, delivered what we got to the Dayspring Center in Jeff’s Ecto-1.

As far as I know, this was one of, if not the first times a group in the Ghostbusters community did something for charity during the pandemic. I like to think we inspired others as after that, I saw others doing similar things or even thinking outside of the box, like my friend and frequent collaborator Bob Anderson running a charity trivia livestream with members of Ghostbusters teams from across the US.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ccghostbusters.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CircleCityGhostbusters/
• Linkedin: https://www.instagram.com/circlecityghostbusters/
• Twitter: https://x.com/ccghostbusters
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CircleCityGhostbusters
• Other: Who ya gonna call? 317-983-2368

Image Credits

Andrew Beymer took the photo at the parade and of the little girl holding the donation jar