Trick-or-“Tweet” Trail Friday at Packard Children’s

Kids take a break from illness to scare up some treats (and even some tweets)

For Release: October 26, 2010

STANFORD, Calif. — How does a hospital morph itself into a Halloween playground? First, create 50 different trick-or-treat stops. Next, decorate the halls, desks and doors. Then, build one of the world’s freakiest haunted houses. Throw in a couple hundred caregivers trying to out-costume each other. And finally, invite some of the most special kids in the world.

Welcome to the annual Trick-or-Treat Trail this Friday (29) at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. It’s a place where all types of kids with illness can experience the thrill of Halloween even if they’re hospitalized. It’s an exciting and poignant event that patients, families, and staff spend weeks preparing for. Now, the decorations, the haunted house, the toys, gooey treats and outrageous costumes are almost ready for the big day. And this year, to allow those away from the hospital to also follow the Trail, Packard Children’s will be tweeting and posting photos of the event while it’s happening via the hospital’s Twitter feed. It’s a Trick-or-Treat Trail with tweets. (Say that real fast.)

Of course, it’s not just kids, siblings and families hitting the Trail and getting a two-day jump on Oct. 31. The staff gets into it, big-time, with lots of themes. The superhero nurses on 3 North? They’re dressing as, well, superheroes.

“We think it’s one very cool way to give kids a little bit of normalcy,” said Colette Case, director of child and family life services, whose team masterminds and organizes the extravaganza. “It’s a major event for all of us, and we’re proud of the happiness it creates.”

Event info:

Friday, 10/29/10, 1:30pm-3:00pm

Packard Children’s Hospital, 725 Welch Rd., Palo Alto, CA

Follow the event on Twitter
1:30-3:00pm at twitter.com/packardhospital
(or, search Twitter hashtags #trailkids or #halloween)

Authors

Robert Dicks
(650) 497-8364
rdicks@stanfordchildrens.org