Children with illnesses celebrate Halloween at Nemours Children's Hospital annual party

WILMINGTON, Del. - Spirit Halloween brought the spooky season directly to families at Nemours Children’s Hospital on Wednesday.

"This event is wonderful," said Deshonta Atkinson whose daughter is recovering after a procedure. "I like it, and then my kids enjoy it because they get to have costumes for Halloween."

"It goes Halloween and then Christmas," said Amelia Gaffney. "I love Halloween so much."

Gaffney, 14, was diagnosed with cancer in July and had to undergo chemotherapy for the last three months. The Halloween party was also a celebration for overcoming this tough period.

"I just finished chemo last Wednesday so I’m officially cancer free," said Gaffney.

The annual Halloween party at Nemours started in 2011. It features various games, toys, giveaways and free costumes.

"We have patients as little as our tiniest babies in our NICU, all the way to our teenagers who really enjoy getting to dress up and sort of be somebody else, you know, they’re not a child in the hospital today, they get to be anybody they want to be," said Hilary Bruno, the Director of Child Life at Nemours. "Our patients being in the hospital, they miss out on those normal opportunities that they would get to have if they were at home or at school, so Spirit comes in, they bring us costumes, they bring us activities and they have a ton of fun with these kids."

Michael Rosenthal, the Associate Director of Stores Mid-Atlantic for Spirit Halloween, said the most popular costumes this year are Marvel superheroes, Disney princesses and Beetlejuice.

"Our teams are all dressed up. We have plenty of costumes, and it’s a fun, fun day for the kids," said Rosenthal. "We just love what we do. We bring it to 150 hospitals. We have so much support. Seeing the kids and the arts and crafts and just bringing Halloween to the kids that can’t go out and celebrate it, and it’s something that’s very passionate to Spirit."

Throughout the Halloween season Spirit also collects donations in-store to give back to Nemours Child Life program.