Cloud Real Estate donates costumes for kids

By PAMELA GRANT
Cove Leader-Press 

Halloween is about fun, candy, and dressing up. However, some families, for one reason or another, cannot afford to purchase a Halloween costume each year.
Deborah Beene, owner of Cloud Real Estate, made it a goal to help make sure every child could have a costume. Saturday morning, during the business’ normal operating hours, Cloud Real Estate offered their All Treats, No Tricks Costume Shop which allowed families to choose a free Halloween costume for their children and pick up some candy while they were there.
Rachel Garcia brought her granddaughter, Larae Bragg, to pick up a Halloween costume at the last minute.
“This is my grandbaby, and I was unexpectedly kinda like stuck with her for Halloween, and I was like ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do’”, said Garcia. “Somebody shared this with me on Facebook because they knew she was going to get dropped off. I’m super grateful. I can’t even put it into words.”
Prior to the event, Cloud Real Estate collected donations of new and used Halloween costumes. Their Cove location collected about 100 costumes, with a wide variety available for both boys and girls. They had super hero costumes, Star Wars, princess, unicorn costumes, and more. They tried to offer something for everyone and even had a few props available to make the costumes even more special.
“We had people buy some brand-new ones for us, and then donate some used costumes…We just wanted to collect costumes and provide them for free to the public, to whoever wanted to come and get a costume,” said Beene. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
She said that they wanted to hold their giveaway event on Saturday morning so that people would be able to have a costume before the city’s big Fall-o-Ween Festival later that same night. She said it was fun for them, and she knew that it would also be good for the community.
Beene’s daughters helped with the event, and many of the costumes Beene donated were Halloween and dance costumes that her daughters had previously worn. She said that it’s also a way of ‘cleaning out’ which is something the real estate company encourages.
“We dress up with the kids every year, and they outgrow them, or they don’t fit into them anymore,” said Beene. “I figured that if I’m in that situation, then lots of other people are too.”
Children grow so quickly that the costume they wore the year before might not fit anymore, and it can be a hardship to keep buying costumes year after year, especially for families with multiple children. She said that it was very heartwarming seeing how many people were willing to donate costumes, adding that they had more girl costumes and that went out and buy more so that boys coming in would have a greater variety to choose from.
“I really appreciate it, because this is only two out of my four, so this was a blessing,” said Brandi Clark who brought her children, Joseph Clark and Lilly Clark to pick out costumes.