Twenty years ago, Lon Davis had to get creative for Halloween. His 3-year-old son, Reese, wanted to dress up as Wall-E. But Reese, who was born with cancer, had just gotten his first wheelchair that year. Without a wheelchair-friendly costume available to buy, Davis built one for Reese out of a Dell computer box.
That costume became so popular that people started asking Davis to build accessible costumes for their children. In 2015, father and son founded Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes to help other children with walkers and wheelchairs have the Halloween costume of their dreams.
Over 10 years of running the nonprofit, Davis said Walkin’ & Rollin’ has provided more than 200 costumes for kids across the country, including more than 30 this year alone. One of those was the group’s first international costume for a girl in Canada.
“We didn't really plan on doing it,” Davis said. “But when my son turned 10, he said that he wanted to start building them for other kids so that they could experience what he does. We didn't know how this would take off, we didn't know how it would grow.”
The costumes are free for families and take about three months to build with the help of many volunteers. The group spends the rest of the year preparing for Halloween, meeting with its team of builders, picking candidates and designing costumes, and attending events like Comicon.
Walkin’ & Rollin’ has expanded over the past decade to include four chapters — at Wichita State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and in a four-state Blue Ridge region. Locally, six high schools and middle schools also help create costumes.
This year, a group at Heritage Middle School in Liberty made an “Avatar: The Last Airbender”-themed costume for a child named Logan. Bishop Miege High School students transformed the wheelchair of a child named Alicia into a custom Doc McStuffins ambulance.
Building the costumes helps the students learn skills in STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math. Davis said solving a real-world problem and meeting the child they’re building the costume for helps the students learn more about inclusion as well.
“The students have the kid come into the classroom, they do all the measurements, all the photos, everything, and that child is their client, basically,” Davis said. “They take greater pride in the project because they know that there's a child that they're building this for. It becomes very emotional for them as well.”
In 10 years of doing this work, Walkin’ & Rollin’ has become a family affair. Reese is leading teams and designing costumes. Davis’ wife, Anita, is the director of education and outreach and helps schools create curriculum to make these costume builds work in the classroom. Their younger son, Callen, has begun building costumes as well.
One of Davis’ favorite costumes is an Ant-Man costume he and Reese built together in 2019. The family got to meet the real-life Ant-Man, Paul Rudd, who took a picture with Reese in the costume. Reese built another Ant-Man costume in 2023, this time based on “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” That won an award at Kansas City’s Planet Comicon.
Walkin’ & Rollin’ relies on volunteers, donations and corporate sponsors to create Halloween magic. One of them, B&B Theatres, sponsored a costume this year for a girl who wanted to be Elphaba from “Wicked.” The nonprofit will debut her costume at the premiere of “Wicked: For Good” at its theater in Overland Park.
The team will also appear at Planet Anime Kansas City, set for Nov. 21-23, where it will show off two anime-themed costumes they built this year.
After that, the Walkin’ & Rollin’ crew will wind down their Halloween festivities and take a break until January, when planning for next year’s costumes begins. Davis said the best feeling is hearing stories from the families they’ve helped about how the costumes helped make Halloween extra special for their child.
“The builds themselves can be stressful,” Davis said. “Things happen, there's mistakes, there's all kinds of things that we have to fix and get them just right. But once the child sees the costume and their face lights up, it makes it all worthwhile. That's what keeps us going and keeps us motivated, is the expressions and the stories of the families.”
