Halloween is a frightfully fun time of year, with costumes, candy and spooky adventures. But for some parents, the scariest part of the season isn’t the ghosts or goblins – it’s the struggle to find a costume that fits not only their child’s imagination but also their wheelchair.
While there have been more efforts to create readily available wheelchair-friendly costumes over the years, the options are still relatively limited.
Cole dresses up as the Grinch on Santa’s sleigh.
“In the past, I dreaded Halloween,” parent Joanne shared.
But it wasn’t just the lack of costumes her son Cole could choose from that bothered her; it was navigating how to include him in festivities like trick-or-treating.
“We went door to door, and people didn’t come out, so I would go up to each house and run candy back to Cole,” Joanne said.
After hearing similar sentiments from other parents, Shriners Children’s Salt Lake City staff members decided to start a Halloween Costume Clinic to create larger-than-life costumes that seamlessly incorporated their patients’ wheelchairs into the design.
“We meet with the kids to get an idea of what they want their costume to be like, and then we just make it happen,” recreational therapist Laura Hollingshead said.
Crafting with creativity and care
The process usually involves lots of glue, PVC pipe, paint, cardboard, the occasional pool noodle and some seriously creative thinking. And when the dust settles, patients have eye-catching costumes that make them the stars of Halloween.
“The costumes look amazing,” parent Jennifer said. “Instead of Annika feeling singled out at school in a negative way as being different, she is the coolest girl each October because of her transformed wheelchair.”
Since the clinic’s inception nine years ago, parents have told staff members how the costumes get people to come out of their houses to glimpse these one-of-a-kind costumes during trick-or-treating, turning heads and sparking conversations.
“The clinic has changed how we experience Halloween; it is something we look forward to now,” Joanne said. “Cole just loves it when people come up and tell him how cool his costume is.”
Throughout the years, Cole’s wheelchair has been transformed into King Kong, the Empire State Building, the Batmobile, a monster truck and Santa’s sleigh, with Cole dressing up as the Grinch.
With each passing year, the clinic continues to craft extraordinary costumes. It fosters a sense of belonging and acceptance, turning what was once a source of dread into a cherished tradition of ingenuity and creativity.
