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Anti-bullying movie gives voice to Naperville writer with cerebral palsy

Erin Feeney can't use her vocal chords to give voice to the things in her heart.

But the Naperville 24-year-old with cerebral palsy is a words person to the core, encouraged by her mother to be verbally creative and to put her ideas into the world, no matter the obstacles.

Louise "Lulu" Feeney died last year, but up until then, she encouraged her daughter to write, dance and express herself. She would say, "Just because you're in a wheelchair and you can't walk and you can't talk doesn't mean you can't create," said Heather Hutchison, program director for Artful Impact!, a nonprofit that encourages growth through the arts.

The message translated to Feeney, who frequently wrote stories with her mom and now has written a short film called "Kids in Toyland," which will debut on the big screen at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 15 at Hollywood Palms cinema, 352 S. Route 59, Naperville.

The film packs an anti-bullying message inspired by Feeney's experiences.

"I wrote my stories to empower kids to stand up for themselves," Feeney said, speaking through a computerized augmentative communication device called a Tobii, which is mounted on her wheelchair. "I was bullied in elementary school and wrote stories to cope with my feelings."

The eight-minute film Feeney created with the help of director Billy Surges is magical, Hutchison said.

Its theme reflects Feeney's desire to become a children's author and screenwriter for Disney. And its actors, 14 Naperville-area residents with special needs, help achieve Artful Impact's SPECTRUM program's goal of proving people with disabilities ways to express themselves like normally developing peers. It just takes some thought.

"If we can all think a little bit differently and modify the things that we do, really they can do what everyone else does," Hutchison said.

Once Feeney and Surges completed the plot, in which Feeney says "a boy and a girl are transported to a distant world and fight a wizard who is a bully," Hutchison gathered actors.

Some needed to be pushed in their wheelchairs. Others needed encouragement to stay on task during long filming sessions at Naper Settlement or help with memorization or eye contact.

Feeney herself has acted in Artful Impact! plays with the help of a wheelchair pusher and her Tobii, Hutchison said. Offstage, Feeney would enter her lines into her Tobii, which works like the autocorrect feature on a smartphone, suggesting words and phrases until the user chooses the one she intends.

When her time would come, Feeney would blink at the Tobii, which tracks eye movement, prompting it to read out the correct phrase on cue.

"It's a really cool way that she can participate in something that's completely verbal," Hutchison said.

Supporters say her film "Kids in Toyland" is another triumph in the writing career of the College of DuPage student who plans to head to a four-year college.

The March 15 screening is by invitation only to keep the scene calm for participants with disabilities who need to avoid sensory overload. But Artful Impact aims to make "Kids in Toyland" the first in an occasional film series called "Once Upon A Time" and show it at later public screenings and film festivals.

Among the VIP guests at the first screening will be the writer herself, escaping her disability as she usually can only through her words.

"It will be a dream come true!" Feeney said.

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Erin Feeney, 24, of Naperville, participates in a theater class with the SPECTRUM program of the Naperville nonprofit Artful Impact. The organization helped Feeney produce her short film "Kids in Toyland," which will debut March 15. Courtesy of Deb Newman
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