NILES — The prohibition era will be returning for a brief evening at Halbritter Wickens Funeral Services to benefit supplying the community with coats.

On Saturday, Jan. 25, Halbritter Wickens Funeral Services will host a Gatsby-themed speakeasy murder mystery event from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets cost $30 and can be purchased on Event Brite or at the funeral home, 615 E. Main St., Niles. All proceeds raised from the event will go towards the funeral services’ Coats of Caring project.

Last year, the funeral home hosted a 1980s-themed murder mystery fundraiser and raised more than $1,000 to go towards purchasing coats that were then donated to the Salvation Army, Ferry Street Resource Center and Evy’s Closet. This year, before the planning even began, they had already received questions from visitors asking about the next event.

“We collect coats year-round, but when the colder months hit, then we get them out,” said Sabrina Wickens, co-owner of Halbritter Wickens Funeral Services.

Wickens heard of other funeral homes hosting coat collection programs while at a funeral directors’ conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

When she returned home from the conference, she reached out to Ferry Street Resource Center, the funeral services’ back door neighbors, and asked if they could use coats. A member of the funeral board of directors, who also sits on the Salvation Army board, also asked the Salvation Army if it could use coats.

Both centers echoed similar testaments of need, Wickens said. In November 2018, Wickens and her husband, Steve, started Coats of Caring.

In its second full year, the funeral home has already received a large supply of adult coats.

“In our case, we have families who, after they loss a family member, they have a ton of stuff,” Wickens said. “We get coats that way. We get them washed. O’Keefe Dry Cleaners does all our cleaning.”

Now, the funeral home is in need of children’s sized coats. The money raised from the murder mystery event will allow the funeral home to go shopping for brand new children’s coats to fill a need in the community.

Wickens is aiming to have 50 people attend the fundraiser, which would help exceed the $1,000 goal. With planning well underway, the Wickens are no strangers to the world of murder mysteries.

The couple used to host them as a family on New Year’s Eve. Their daughter, who works at a nonprofit event venue in Indianapolis, has put on similar events for 70-plus attendees. She will be in attendance at the event to help her parents.

“We went to one last year and had a blast,” Wickens said. “We’ve been to three now.”

After attending one of the mystery events, the couple came up with the idea to put on one of their own, with the added element of hosting it at a funeral home.

Attendees at the event can expect a fair amount of mingling with other characters, mocktails and 1920s era-dress.

“There is a company you can get the script through,” Wickens said. “With the kits, you kind of have a little bit of background about yourself and little, snippets about people, but its more mingling. It’s a lot of asking people questions and trying to figure things out.”

With the added component of a speakeasy, the couple has already brainstormed ideas to create one inside the funeral home.

“We are revamping how people are going to be coming in,” Sabrina said. “We have enough entrances and different ways to get into the funeral home. We have figured out how we are going to manage that.”