Walkin' & Rollin' Costumes Year in Review: 2023!
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2023 was a wild, but extremely fun and exciting year for Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes. What started out as a year like many before, escalated quickly to become one of massive growth for our little non-profit. Our first reveal of the year was a wonderful Cinderella themed coach that we revealed at Planet Comicon. B&B Theatres sponsored the costume and then surprised us by announcing they would sponsor every movie-themed costume of 2023! We launched our first Spring Workshop, open to the public, at Hammerspace Workspace and built 4 costumes that were shipped to kids around the nation; a Little Mermaid, Transformers Bumblebee, Pokémon Pokeball and Minnie’s Bowtique Van. We ended up meeting Minnie’s Bowtique Van costume in Florida, and presenting it to McKenna and her family for a heartwarming story involving her late father. CareSource co-hosted the “Care for the Caregiver” event in Florida and sponsored McKenna’s costume.
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In the fall, we hosted our 2nd workshop of the year at Hammerspace Workspace. We built 5 costumes to be revealed at our Annual Wheelchair Costume Reveal Party in October. The amount of planning that went into our Reveal Party for 2023 was mind blowing. For the first time, we live-streamed the entire 2 hour event on our YouTube channel. We gave away 10 wheelchair costumes, many that were built by local high school teams, as well as the 5 we built at our workshop. These included such costumes as a Batman Batpod, a “Nightmare Before Christmas” costume, a “Jurassic Park” jeep, and the highlight being the “Spaceballs” themed Winnebago! B&B Theatres and CareSource combined to sponsor 9 of the costumes revealed, with Kinley Construction not only sponsoring the “Spaceballs” costume, but also building it.
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Normally, Halloween is the end of our busy season, and we get a little time to rest before the next year but 2023 was not like other years. CareSource invited us down to Houston, Texas to reveal 4 Basketball themed wheelchair costumes to 4 different superfans of the 4 teams competing at the Toyota Center. While revealing the costumes at halftime of the first game, in front of the entire stadium, CareSource surprised us with a $25,000 donation to Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes! We have also partnered with CareSource to provide even more costumes for kids around the nation in 2024 and beyond!
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While this would normally be the end of the 2023 recap, I can’t miss mentioning the other accomplishments we made internally at Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes. 2023 saw the launch of our “Experienced Build Team” of 9 individuals located around the nation that are natural leaders and helped design and build the costumes for this year. They have also been instrumental in designing our new “Resources” page of our website that features costume plans, material lists, 3D Printer files for custom made joints, parts and costume pieces that we share with everyone online. On top of that, this team helped establish our 2nd and 3rd chapters of Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes. The Blue Ridge Region and the University of Pittsburgh join our Wichita State University chapter and the Kansas City Region in helping create costumes for every child with special needs equipment around the nation.
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As we look to 2024, we see more amazing things ahead. Our continued partnership with CareSource, a newly designed costume request system integrated online, building up the new chapters, and possibly launching even more chapters in the next 12 months. We see nothing but positive activity happening within our non-profit, and we want you to be a part of it. Join us at a workshop, donate to keep these costumes free for the families, and come to our October Reveal Party this year to see all the excited faces of the kids. I promise you won’t regret it. It’s just how we roll.
Lon Davis
Founder/Creative Designer
Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes
Lon Davis
Founder/Creative Designer
Walkin’ & Rollin’ Costumes
Highlights from 2023:
Ant-Man: Quantumania Premiere, Ranchmart Carnival with Just-Us League, Winning the "Sickest Cosplay Costume" award for our Quantumania costume, Giancarlo Esposito wanting photos of our Mandalorian costumes and sharing them on his social media, being a guest at the first Planet Anime, partnering with CareSource for an amazing build in Houston, Texas!
