Starlight Deliveries Deliver a Spook-tacular Halloween in the Hospital

During the holidays, hospitalized children often face unique challenges and miss out on typical childhood experiences. For Halloween, that includes not being able to go trick or treating in their neighborhood, requiring more assistance, or needing accessible costumes that are not as readily available

Hospitals around the country try to make holidays as special as possible for the kids that can’t leave — like Starlight’s Hospital Partner, the Children’s Clinics for Rehabilitative Services in Arizona, who have found ways to make Halloween fun and meaningful!

For the Children’s Clinics, Halloween is a big celebration! In previous years, staff members would dress up and host a costume contest and would end appointments in the clinic before lunch to start their Halloween transformation. The entire clinic would transform with various trick-or-treat stations so the kids return after lunch to a spooky clinic. Once they finished trick-or-treating, patients had the option to do Halloween-themed crafts and games while jamming out to Monster Mash.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, the Children’s Clinics is hosting a drive-thru for patients to visit the clinic at stations in the parking lot and share their excitement with the staff this year.

“Because of Starlight [Deliveries], we are able to provide an inclusive Halloween experience,” said, Lyssa Adams, Child Life Specialist at Children’s Clinics for Rehabilitative Services. “Every patient is able to leave with candy, non-candy treats, or toys, and are having fun and enjoying the day.”

This year, Starlight was also able to distribute a variety of adaptive and wheelchair costumes, including role play items provided by Disney, for patients who typically struggle to find them.

“It is great being able to help create a memorable Halloween experience with the help of Starlight. All the kids love the costumes, especially the wheelchair costumes that are hard to find, because they help bring their imagination to life. It brings pure joy to our kids and these generous donations help them become characters that they might not have been otherwise due to accessibility or cost. It will be great to see them all dressed up in costumes that they enjoy, that allow them to fully participate in the festivities.”

Starlight Deliveries sends hundreds of thousands of books, toys, games, arts & crafts, and other items directly to seriously ill kids — enabling kids to have moments of joy throughout the year and around specific holidays.