HERSHEY, Pa. — Superheroes come in all shapes and sizes.
Spiderman, Elsa and Anna, Mario, the Fairy Godmother and Spider Gwen made a special visit to Penn State Children’s Hospital to turn everyday heroes into superheroes. The superheroes brought homemade capes for pediatric patients and their siblings, customized with each child’s first name initial. The families also ate breakfast and visited with their favorite characters.
The April 2 event was designed to give patients and their families some time together outside of the patient room. Families of children who were too sick to leave their rooms could also pick out capes to have personalized for those patients.
Capes4Heroes provided the costumed characters and capes. The community-based, nonprofit organization creates and distributes personalized superhero capes to recognize and empower children as well as remind them of their strength and courage each day. To date, Capes4Heroes has distributed more than 10,000 capes to children in California, Illinois, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Washington and New York. The group's goal for 2016 is to distribute capes to 10,000 more children across the country.