By Kathryn Coulibaly
Put a group of educators together, and you’re going to get results, usually beyond your wildest dreams.
Joan Alito, an NJREA member retired from the Mercer County Special Services School District (MCSSSD), Nancy Greener, an NJREA member retired from the Hopewell Valley Regional School District (HVRSD), Karen Demeter, teacher at Mercer Elementary School in MCSSSD, Dr. Barbara McCarty, a media specialist at Timberlane Middle School in HVRSD, along with Helen Corveleyn, a teacher at Timberlane (HVRSD) used their connections, expertise and commitment to students to create a Halloween to remember for students at MCSSSD and HVRSD.
The project began with McCarty whose cousin, Dr. Melissa Rose, works with an organization called Children’s Assistive Technology Service (CATS) in Virginia.
“CATS accepts donations of gently used pediatric adaptive equipment, cleans and refurbishes the donations and provides them to children with disabilities who need it,” McCarty says.
Rose is the clinical director of the organization, so McCarty is familiar with their work and a special annual project called Hallowheels.
“With Hallowheels, families build costumes for their children who use assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, walkers, adaptive strollers and communication devices, and post their photos on the CATS website as a fundraiser,” McCarty says. “For a dollar a vote, people can choose their favorite costume and the proceeds are put back into CATS.”
CATS begins calling for people to make costumes over the summer. McCarty felt this would be a perfect project for Corveleyn’s Medical Detectives STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) elective class.
“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do an authentic STEM application?’” McCarty recalls. “In addition, we were hoping that a practical STEM project might inspire greater participation in our science fair. We also wanted to get more families involved, so we wrote an NJEA FAST grant.” (See sidebar on Page 26.)
McCarty and Corveleyn wanted to get historically marginalized groups to think about going into STEM careers.
“We thought if we could get kids thinking about the assistive devices and what other children like them would want, we could really inspire them,” McCarty says. “We had CATS talk to the kids about what they do, and Helen inspired them to consider how this would fit into a career in STEM. This project really touched on a lot of different areas.”
Kids helping kids be kids for Halloween
One of the biggest obstacles was finding students who need assistive devices. McCarty reached out to Alito and Greener, who suggested working with MCSSSD.
“Children in wheelchairs rarely get the costumes they want for Halloween,” Alito says. “It’s difficult to build something that works for them, so they’ll get a witch’s hat or a firefighter’s helmet. This was an opportunity to give them the costumes they’d always wanted.”
“We began making plans in August,” McCarty recalls. “None of us had done anything like this before. I certainly had never built a Halloween costume out of PVC pipes.”
The MCSSSD students had big dreams for their costumes.
“The kids got to say what kind of costume they wanted,” Alito says. “Some wanted to be a train conductor or a member of Paw Patrol. They were able to communicate what they wanted using iPads or other assistive technology to let the students in Hopewell know their wishes.”
Meanwhile, the Hopewell team began working in mid-September. There were approximately 60 students in Corveleyn’s Medical Detectives class and 15 more students in the after-school STEM program who worked on the project.
“We introduced students to the project and to their clients, who they now call their friends,” McCarty says. “We talked to them about the mechanics of building but also about empathy and what the experience would be like for the children they were designing for.”
Timberlane students developed vision boards of what the costumes their clients wanted would entail. From there, they made sketches. The deadline to complete and deliver the costumes was Oct. 22, because they had to have the contest pictures up on the CATS website by Oct. 24.
Ultimately, the Hopewell students designed 12 costumes for students in wheelchairs. Ten of them were for MCSSSD students, and there was one student at Timberlane Middle School and another student at the elementary level in Hopewell.
The day they delivered the costumes was exciting for everyone involved.
“There were so many students from Hopewell who wanted to meet the MCSSSD students, we had to have them apply and write testimonials to claim their spot,” McCarty says. “About 27 students were able to make the trip to MCSSSD.”
The Hopewell students were excited to meet their clients, deliver the costumes and see the other children’s reactions. They also received a tour of the school to learn more about MCSSSD.
“The children at MCSSSD were thrilled to have costumes that fit them,” Alito says. “There wasn’t a dry adult eye in the room the day we delivered the costumes and connected the students.”
“We had one student who loved wrestling,” McCarty says. “The students built him a wrestling ring and a belt to go with it. He was over the moon. It was an opportunity for our students to be creative and for the other students to get something they don’t usually have access to.”
Hallowheels leads to more projects
While the project began as a Halloween activity, the students so enjoyed getting to meet each other that there are plans to bring them together again.
“We’re doing a Share the Fare book donation project during our Scholastic Book Fair and bringing about 25 students from Hopewell to MCSSSD in December to deliver the books and read to our new friends,” McCarty says.
The goal is to continue to find ways to bring the two groups of students together.
“When the kids from Hopewell came to MCSSSD to present the costumes to the students, it was a great experience for both sides,” Alito says. “Oftentimes, these are two populations who never meet. The kids in Hopewell were so kind and curious and really wanted to know so much more about the students and the school in general.”
“Our schools are only 20 minutes away from each other, but this experience really opened up their eyes to a school and a community that they weren’t aware of and are now interested in,” McCarty says.
“It was a lot of figuring things out as we went,” McCarty says. “We will certainly be doing this again next year. We raised more than $3,000 in donations for CATS from our costumes.”
Once a teacher, always a teacher
Everyone involved agrees that the project would have never been possible without the connections, energy and support of two retired teachers, Alito and Greener, who happen to be sisters.
“I always say that retired teachers are an untapped resource out in the community. We want to stay connected to the careers that we had for so many years,” Alito says. “The wheels are always turning as to what’s next and how to stay connected to the field of education, as much as possible.”
Alito urges educators to reach out to their networks, including retirees, to help them with big projects.
“I was an educator for 38 years,” Alito says. “People would say, ‘I thought you were retired.’ But ‘retired’ can vary for a lot of people. The new kind of retired is going out and doing the things that I feel really passionate about and want to do.”
Alito says that there were teachers she worked with for more than 30 years who had tears in their eyes seeing MCSSSD students be so excited to have these other students paying attention to them.
“We don’t have to work in isolation; in fact, we shouldn’t be,” Alito insists. “You realize the value of these kinds of experiences when you actually go out into the community. This is win-win for everyone.”
And, as Alito says, “Once a teacher, always a teacher.”
Kathryn Coulibaly is the associate editor of the NJEA Review and provides content and support to njea.org. She can be reached at kcoulibaly@njea.org.
NJEA FAST grants
The MCSSSD and Hopewell educators agree that finding funding for the project was vital. They applied for an NJEA FAST grant, also known as NJEA’s Families and Schools Together Work for Children. They applied for a $2,500 grant, which they used on costumes, promotional items and to fund a table at the Hopewell Haunted Hallways event that educated Hopewell families about the project.
FAST works to encourage families to be involved in their children’s education, to enhance their academic progress and to feel welcome in public schools. FAST is a coalition of education advocates, community groups and schools working together to foster family involvement. Local associations can apply for FAST grants to help them implement projects to forge stronger connections between families and their local schools. For more information, go to njea.org/fast.
Children’s Assistive Technology Services (CATS)
CATS provides for the re-use of pediatric rehabilitation equipment and assistive technology devices in Virginia. CATS is a no-cost resource for children with disabilities who need adaptive equipment and whose families have limited resources, have been denied authorization from insurance or need equipment short term. Learn more at atdevicesforkids.org.
Hallowheels is CATS annual fundraising extravaganza, now in its eighth year. This unique event celebrates kids with disabilities in any costume of their choosing and also showcases one-of-a-kind children’s costumes, thoughtfully designed around their mobility devices. View the other Hallowheels entries at hallowheels.org/vote.