Trick-or-treaters show off personalized costumes in search of candy

The children are students at Positive Tomorrows, a private, tuition-free Oklahoma City elementary school that exclusively serves homeless children. The kids were wearing Halloween costumes specially made for them by students in Oklahoma City University's Arts Management Costume Lab.

“It's very exciting for our students to get to do this sort of thing,” said Susan Agel, president and principal at Positive Tomorrows.

The teachers and staff at Positive Tomorrows work hard to provide their students some of the rites of childhood they might otherwise miss out on because of their living situations. Homeless children often don't get to play sports, take music lessons and have full-blown Halloween costumes like their peers.

“We try to make up for a lot of that stuff,” Agel said. They do so with the help of the community, such as the OCU student costume designers and OCU music students who provide the kids music lessons.

Students in the costume lab at OCU began the costume-making process in September by visiting with the children to find out what kind of costumes they wanted.

Some wanted to be fairy princesses, super heroes, and University of Oklahoma football players.

“We try to steer them away from anything too gory,” Agel said. “We have children here who are dealing with a lot of trauma in their lives ... sometimes life can be scary enough.”