Getting a Halloween costume for a child in a wheelchair is complicated. The range of costumes on offer is practically non-existent and poorly adapted. But for the past two years, thanks to the initiative of a Châteauguay woman touched by this reality, 25 students from Brenda-Milner Regional School have been receiving personalized costumes made from scratch by students from Howard S. Billings Secondary School in Châteauguay.
Translation Amanda Bennett
The project, which links the two schools, was started last year by Johanne Fortin of Châteauguay, who loves designing Halloween costumes. When her grandson attended Gérin-Lajoie elementary school in Châteauguay, he was in daily contact with children with disabilities, as the school catered for this clientele before the specialized school opened in 2019. Ms. Fortin noticed that they didn’t wear Halloween costumes. “It’s true that you don’t see costumes for people in wheelchairs in the shops. But a child in a wheelchair deserves to have a costume like any other child,” she said.
The Châteauguay native came up with the idea of designing one herself, and told the principal of Brenda-Milner school about her project. Michel Robert was delighted with the initiative. “It’s complicated for parents to get a costume. I went to Walt Disney last summer and saw adapted costumes for the first time, but they were so expensive!”
Making Costumes from A to Z
Johanne Fortin then approached Katrina Smith-Valade, a teacher at Billings High School, who came up with the idea of integrating the project into the design course offered to students in the international education programme.
To design the costumes, the students sent a form to their parents asking for information about the dimensions of the wheelchair and the child’s interests or wishes for the Halloween costume. They then drew up a plan and proceeded to create the costume, most of which was made from cardboard boxes.
The newspaper took a tour of Ms. Smith-Valade’s class on the eve of Halloween, when the Grade 9 teenagers were putting the finishing touches on their costumes. There was a sense of excitement and urgency about getting everything ready for the next day. They were cutting, colouring and painting non-stop … and asking their teacher lots of last-minute questions.
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(Photo : Le Soleil – Denis Germain)
Jade Letham and her team were painstakingly drawing the maze that features in the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. “Our child will have a Harry Potter costume and he really wanted to have this theme with dragons,” she explained. This experience made her realize that not everyone is equally lucky.
“The fact they aren’t able to do certain things that we are able to do in our daily lives is very crazy.”
Her classmate Alexa Sénécal was working on a restaurant-themed costume. “I like the fact that she’s going to have a costume for Halloween and that’s what she wanted,” said the teenager.
Openness to Difference
Katrina Smith-Valade briefed her students on the experience they were about to have the next day, when they would meet the student they were paired with for the first time. The teenagers would also have to adjust and install the costumes on the chairs.
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(Photo : Le Soleil – Valérie Lessard)
“The environment at Brenda-Milner is very calm, peaceful collected. The students there are not used to a building like ours with 1000 people”, she explained. She pointed out that most of them are non-verbal, i.e. they don’t speak. “You need to be prepared that if the child doesn’t want your costume, it’s not your fault. You won’t fail, you won’t lose marks because of that. They may not be able to tell you they don’t like that. They may be fussing, resisting to putting the costume”, the teacher explained.
A Unique Encounter
The next day, the sixty or so students from Billings School travelled to Brenda-Milner School. As Ms. Smith-Valade had mentioned the day before, the atmosphere was very calm, and the teenagers carefully adjusted the costumes on the chairs, with the help of the support staff who work with the young people at Brenda-Milner on a daily basis. Billings Principal Nick Laframboise, who was also present, seemed touched by this unique initiative. “It’s an incredible experience for the students,” he said.
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Johanne Fortin. (Photo : Le Soleil – Valérie Lessard)
Ms. Fortin was also present and had designed two costumes herself: a Barbie vehicle and a Bumblebee outfit. The Halloween morning ended with a parade of the costumes through the school corridors, watched with pride by the teachers, staff and Billings’ students.