PUBLISHED: 10-27-08

Spreading a new holiday spirit to kids in need

Radio station donates Halloween costumes to less fortunate children

Christmas has always been the most popular season for giving and sharing, but this year one radio station is trying to add Halloween to that list.

Costumes for Kids, launched on Sept. 10 by Rotting Flesh Radio, is a new program that aims to provide Halloween costumes for those less fortunate.

The web-based radio station is the only weekly radio show for the haunt industry, and owner Jonathan Johnson came up with the idea for Costumes for Kids a couple of months ago. After an encounter with a kid from his neighborhood, he realized he could help children in need celebrate Halloween with a costume.

Since he’s involved in the Halloween business as the host of his radio show, he found a lot of costumes he had at his house and realized he could solicit help and donations from others. He began contacting local organizations that help keep kids off the streets and realized it might help them and families in need.

“I talked to hospitals and children with disabilities, and a lot of the costumes aren’t designed for someone in a wheelchair,” he said. “I began looking into costume providers and people who were able to make those costumes.”

After launching the program a month before Halloween, Johnson said there has been a great turnout, even with the short notice. Haunted houses as well as individuals across the country have been sending out costumes.

The program will be sending costumes off to hospitals, charities, youth organizations and nonprofits that have contacted them with a need in their communities.

One of the haunted houses helping out is Fright Kingdom. Owner Angela Dunne has been contacting retailers in New Hampshire where she lives. She’s aiming to get help from those who set up Halloween shops and has agreed to donate Halloween costumes for next year.

“Next year I hope to get more active and involved in it and have a drive in our haunted house,” she said. “I think there are hundreds of kids that aren’t going trick-or-treating because parents can’t afford costumes, and having programs like this allows them to be a part of it.”

Getting the word out on such short notice was not difficult for Chad Savage, a web designer who has worked with Johnson for years. He placed ads on all the haunted houses websites he currently supervises, such as HauntedHouseChicago.com.

“Every Christmas there’s a Toys-for-Tots and all these programs to do and give an underprivileged kid some happiness during the holiday season,” he said. “We realized there was nothing like that for Halloween, so it was a great start.”

Not having enough costumes for the kids might be the last thing on Johnson’s mind. He’s more worried about storage because of the many donations he has received.

“We have already shipped items out to Colorado, New York, Illinois and Virginia,” Johnson said. “We’re now asking people to start their own chapters of Costumes for Kids, next year.”

The program will be working through the end of this year and next in order to send out more costumes to more families and organizations in time for Halloween. The one requirement Johnson specifies is that the organizations send back pictures of the kids in the costumes to prove to hopeful sponsors that they are reaching out to those in need.

“I feel like Halloween is one holiday where they can play dress-up and pretend they’re something they’re not,” Johnson said. “Disabled kids might forget [ their limitations] by playing pretend and being a princess for a day or a superhero.”

It’s not too late to help. For more information on how to donate costumes for kids, visit CostumesForKids.net.

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