MISSION, Kan. (KCTV) – For generations, kids have looked forward to seeing Santa at shopping centers. What you don’t often see is a throng of movie characters filling their shopping carts with toys. The sight unfolded Monday night as cosplayers bought $32,000 worth of gifts for families with kids at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

It was a smile-inducing surprise for many shoppers at the Mission, Kansas, Target Monday night. Adults raised their phones to surreptitiously get video of Star Wars characters — the Jedi and Sith alike — pushing red carts down the aisle. Kids approached and asked for photos.

“You may be having a bad day, you see that, you’re gonna for sure have a smile on your face,” said one man who stood with mouth agape then broke into a childlike grin.

The project started 14 years ago when cosplayer Jessica Porter teamed up with William Binderup, the owner of Elite Comics. Porter routinely dressed up as Supergirl and visited kids at Children’s Mercy. She wanted to do more.

When she found out the sponsor of the hospital’s toy drive had backed out, it presented the perfect opportunity to expand. She jumped in and contacted Binderup, whom she calls her “partner in kind.”

“I came to him one day and said, ‘Hey, listen, here’s the deal. Children’s Mercy needs some help and I may have written a check that I cannot cash,’” Porter recounted. “And he said, ‘You’re not going to have to worry.’”

It started small, with a donation jar on the counter at Binderup’s Overland Park store. That’s still a fixture all year long, but it takes more than bills in a bucket to come up with dollar amounts like the $32,000 he gathered this year.

“We have like a whole portion of our booth at Planet Comicon goes to it, and we bring in our own guests for Planet and that all goes to it,” said Binderup. “Then our whole entire booth at Planet Anime all goes to the toy drive.”

The toys are selected from a general categories list provided by Children’s Mercy Hospital. They will go to the Snowflake Shop at each of the hospital’s three locations. Here, parents can shop for toys for all of their kids without taking precious time away from their sick child.

“I think part of what I really like is doesn’t come from us. It’s not a toy you didn’t want from a person you don’t know. It’s the toy you wanted from your parents,” Binderup explained. “A lot of them are from out of town staying at Ronald McDonald House. They don’t have the time or money or brain power to go out and buy toys.”

Binderup and about 20 others came in their civilian clothes. They’d blend in if it wasn’t for how full they stacked their carts. Porter wrangles up a crew of cosplayers. Why shop in costume? Porter said it generates conversation about giving, and she hopes it also sends a reminder about what it means to be joyful.

“(We want) to show them that you can continue to have fun no matter how old you are, how young you are. You can always have fun, and you can always be a hero in someone’s eyes,” said Porter.

With a price cap of $30 per toy, they were able to get more than 1,000 of them thanks to the camaraderie of the comic book and cosplay scene.

“These people take care of me. I take care of them. And we take care of these kids,” said Binderup. “And that’s the whole meaning of life. It’s not the meaning of Christmas. It’s the meaning of life. We are here to take care of each other.”

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