Costume giveaway spreads Halloween fun in Cranberry
CRANBERRY TWP — Butler County Young Professionals brought a spooky tradition to the township on Monday afternoon.
The organization offered donated Halloween costumes to the community for children in need from 4 to 7 p.m. through their Ghouls for Good project.
The event, in partnership with their sponsor Armstrong, is an expansion of the program that has existed in Butler for the past six years to bring costumes to children who need them.
“We just want to be sure that everyone has a Halloween costume,” said Kristen Kane, chair of Ghouls for Good. “People always donate for Christmas, but Halloween costumes are expensive, and especially if you have two, three, four kids, it's going to add up.”
Since 2015, the Butler branch of Ghouls for Good has brought more than 1,000 costumes to kids. The organization passes out vouchers for costumes through community organizations like the Alliance for Children and Butler County Youth Services, but never turns away a family even without vouchers.Children in Cranberry had the chance to browse through a selection of around 500 costumes. The costumes will also be available for kids to choose from at the Butler version of the event, scheduled for the Cubs Hall from 4 to 7 p.m. next Monday.“We used to say this makes Halloween a little less scary,” Kane said. “Especially in these times, I think that some people do have it harder than ever.”
Butler County Young Professionals chairman Audrianna Bly said she wanted to make sure families in Cranberry were able to have access to the program.“There's a misconception that kids in Cranberry might not be in need of something like this,” Bly said. “We've found through different studies that it really is something that is needed. That's why we wanted to try it out in Cranberry, to see what kind of response we get.”Last year, because of COVID-19, Ghouls for Good went online and took requests directly from families. The organization bought costumes based on information kids sent in about what they wanted to be for Halloween and delivered them directly.“We didn't want to just not do it, but like everything, we had to do it a little more low key,” Kane said.While last year's remote version gave the organization more of an idea of what costumes kids were specifically looking for — Fortnite-themed, superhero and princess costumes were popular — Kane said she was glad the event had returned in an in-person format.“It's fun to hear their ideas and the creativity behind some costumes,” she said. “It's really (meant) for kids to have a happy Halloween.”
