It is rare when a big company with hundreds (thousands?) of chain stores does something totally touching and worthy. But that's what happened this year with Target Stores.
Jen Kroll, a mother of three who lives in Grand Rapids, MI, got so excited when she opened last week's Target flyer that she rushed to Facebook to say thank you to Target – thank you for this:
You see, Jen's youngest child, Jerrensia, just happens to love Elsa from Frozen. Here's Jerrensia:
Jerrensia came to her family on a medical visa from Haiti. You can read more details about her diagnosis and treatment on Upworthy. But the condensed version is that her hip sockets never formed properly, two years of therapy didn't accomplish much, and the difficult decision was made to amputate both legs through the knees. Today, Jerrensia "walks and RUNS everywhere on prosthetic legs and uses arm crutches to compensate for the lack of muscular development in her legs."
Jen Kroll is very articulate, and can probably tell her (and Jerrensia's) story better than anyone else. So I encourage everyone to click through to Upworthy and/or to my other sources for this article. But what is so important to Jen, as the mother of a child with a disability (and I suspect also as a compassionate human being), is what normalizing disabilities through media and through advertising can accomplish, not just for kids wih disabilities, but for everyone else in the world.
When abled people look at a person with a disability, they tend to see the disability, not the person. Special needs people, special needs families, are virtually invisible to "normal" people. To quote Jen again: "As far as media is concerned — there is a vast emptiness of children with whom she can relate. A Target ad with one precious little girl dressed as Elsa met her where she was and made the world a little more beautiful and friendly."
These sources were used for this article:
http://www.upworthy.com/a-moms-post-about-a-halloween-costume-is-going-viral-on-facebook-thank-you-target?c=upw1&u=6ffb12f2d750fff1c628f4ed4366938bb526f1d5
http://www.today.com/parents/special-needs-mom-cheers-target-ad-featuring-girl-crutches-t52246
https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/priceless-target-ad-goes-viral-for-all-the-right-184054339.html
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2015/10/27/target-ad-model-disability/20905/
13 Responses to “A Hallowe’en Hanky Warning”
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Thanks Joanne!
This is wonderful. It's about time!
A Hallowe’en Hanky Warning – Oct 31 2015
A heart warming and excellent story about Jerrensia, her Mother, Jen Kroll and the ad Target had advertised on Halloween costumes. What normalizing disabilities through media and through advertising can accomplish, not just for kids wih disabilities, but for everyone else in the world. People tend to see the disabilities, not the person. We need to change our perspectives through education.
Target has 1,799 stores in the United States; 38 distribution centers in the United States.
Thanks Joanne for this wonderful story. It was good to read that this wasn't a one off and that Target had included a boy with Down syndrome in 2012. Let's hope they do it every year from now on, making every kid feel included in Halloween.
This is truly such a heartwarming story!! Loved this, and so glad to see that this is getting attention with major store outlets regarding our people with disabilities. Adorable, sweet picture of little Miss Jerrensia too. Hope that she and her family have a delightful Halloween! Rock on with Elsa!
Thanks, Joanne for this.
In a similar vein, I've seen at least three newstories where parents have transformed wheelchairs into very cool Cinderella Carriages and Star War ships.
Huge hugs for turning lemons into lemonade!
http://wkbn.com/2015/10/30/ohio-girls-wheelchair-transforms-into-cinderella-carriage/
http://omnifeed.com/article/mashable.com/2015/10/29/star-wars-wheelchair/
Those are absolutely participially amazing! Thanks so much!
Imaginative parents looking out for their kids to have an excellent Halloween. Big Kudos to them. Thanks for the links, Nameless.
This is living life! High fives for the parents who make dreams come true.
I love this ONE! Meeting people with other-abilities is just the ticket! That made my day!!! As a family member of an other-abled person, I am ecstatic to see this!!
Just a little compassion goes so far with anyone in this kinda life!
Thanks for posting. This is what needs to be done, everywhere. A big bravo to Target.
I grew up with a grandfather who was a paraplegic from the age of 3. I grew up with kids who were blind and/or mobility challenged. That was in the 50s and 60s when unfortunately things were different, more restrictive in many ways. But we made our way through playtime etc our way.
Things have changed for the better and I am very glad that life continues to change for the better.
I'm glad you were able to post this J/D.