Toledo Children's Hospital

One of the things you will hear many people say about groups like ours is that we get to “play Halloween, all year round.”  While that may be true in some respect, not every kid gets to go out and have fun Trick-Or-Treating with their friends… which made yesterday’s mission extra special when Great Lakes Base and Ohio Garrison were invited back to Promedica Toledo Children’s Hospital, to visit with the kids being treated there.

Hospital visits can be something of a balancing act for groups like ours; there can be a lot of protocol involved that could make C3P0’s circuits fizzle.  Each encounter with a patient is unique and both the hospital staff and Star Wars costumers want to help create as many smiles as possible, while at the same time respecting the patients and their parents needs.  For this visit, we ended up going from room to room visiting with kids individually -- because (thank the Force) the children’s wing of the hospital was fairly inactive this weekend.

In some cases, we were not allowed into the room for medical reason -- so we just stood in the doorway and took turns saying "hello!"  There was one girl in the children's ICU unit, whom I'll never forget because she had the most upbeat attitude.  Other times, both parents and nurses told us that they hadn’t seen their kid as excited as when we dropped in to visit them.  Amazing what holding a Jedi's lightsaber can do to improve a sick child's morale!

And as I explained to the kids, since we Star Wars characters are “kind of new to this planet…” and “didn’t totally understand how this Trick-Or-Treat thing worked?” we showed up came with a bag filled with various Star Wars toys, coloring books and games for them to pick something out. (Did I get that backwards?)  In fact, one kid was so excited to receive a gift from us that he rushed over to his Halloween bucket, pulled out some of his candy and put it into our bag as a gift for us… good trade!

Trooping at a hospital can be a balancing act, but they are also one of the most rewarding types of events costume groups get to do!  My first “official” event with Rebel Legion was at a local hospital visit and I’d like to see us do more of them with various local children’s hospitals.