Spotting Muppets on motorcycles may surprise some motorists on Greater Victoria streets while others recognize Animal (the wild drummer puppet) on a Harley hunkering down at the red light behind them.
It’s likely Crofton man Scott Ferron, on a toy run or headed for some other community endeavour.
After all, he doesn’t don the Muppet helmet unless necessary, the beast is a hot and heavy costume.
“People like to wear them for events, not for every day. It’s not exactly a light thing to wear on your neck, especially at highway speeds,” Ferron said. “I’ve become this Animal character, it’s now kind of expected, but there are 30 or 40 different ones now.”
He’s made several of them himself, experimenting with stronger fabric, reflective materials and lights.
“Every time you buy a new helmet they’re slightly different so you have to kind of adjust it,” Ferron said, squeezing the Animal topper on for a photo.
It can take two or three months and a ton of braiding – a skill he had to learn – to get this particular Muppet just right.
Ferron’s affection for Muppets goes way back, but the motorcycle helmet coverings date back to his time with the Canadian Forces while stationed in Halifax.
He and a buddy spotted some on the streets there. “Nothing elaborate like this, but these fabric helmet covers,” Ferron recalled.
Finding them “funny as hell” the duo ordered some and garnered enough attention that people started asking for covers of their own.
“We got a sewing machine, started making them and started selling them, and it just became this weird following,” Ferron said. “It grew into this entity. Today it is a registered non-profit, that collects toys and delivers them to hospitals in the immediate area.”
Helmet Heads Canada sprouted after he was posted to the Island in 2018, growing through word of mouth after a nurse friend suggested Jeneece Place was short on toys.
Adjacent to Victoria General Hospital in View Royal, Jeneece Place – owned and operated by Children’s Health Foundation of Vancouver Island – is a home away from home for families receiving medical treatment in Greater Victoria. With 10 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining, living and play rooms, and a backyard, it’s hosted more than 2,760 families since opening in January 2012.
It was just the first place the Helmet Heads took toys.
Now Ferron gets calls a handful of times a year and the Helmet Head Canada volunteers deliver toys directly to hospitals in Greater Victoria to Port Hardy and west to Tofino.
Ferron was disappointed in how traditional motorcycle toy run donations are often distributed after learning one or two percent come back to Vancouver Island – primarily Victoria General Hospital.
“I decided that’s really not good enough for me,” he said. The gang at Helmet Head Canada – now in the range of 300 strong – collects, sanitizes and delivers its own hauls.
The smiles from people witnessing a horde of costumed bikers is reward enough, but there’s also a satisfying feeling of the smallest impacts – from providing fidgets and colouring books for kids visiting the emergency room to gifting an iPad or Millennium Falcon Lego to fulfill the wish of a terminally ill child.
For security reasons, they don’t see the kids much, but the kids see them, as do parents, visitors and those on the streets during toy runs. And that reception is generally amazing, Ferron said.
“Even when you’re just rolling on the highway, everybody’s looking at you smiling. It turns a bad day into a good day and you’re visible. It’s hard to miss this on the highways,” he said.
The added benefit is the high visibility on a notoriously risky ride. “You don’t have any risk of not being seen, I just feel safer on the bike.”
Those who haven’t seen them on the street may remember Helmet Heads Canada members from the 30 to 50 folks they muster for parades and other community events – this year that included Buccaneer Days in Esquimalt and the Victoria Day parade.
Learn more or donate online at helmetheads.ca.
