Everyone has a Superpower

At a visit to the orthopedist, Radcliffe suggested that if children’s orthotics were made to look like superhero gear, every kid would want them. “The doctor said to me, ‘That’s a great idea — someone should do that.’”

Radcliffe knew she was that “someone.” But she had her hands full as a working mother, then serving as vice president of New York operations for CTGi, a technology and management consulting company.

The pivotal moment came when Radcliffe was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to head up a technology company. “I had been working my whole career for this kind of offer. I came home and said to my husband, ‘I don’t want to do it.’” The couple started talking, rekindling the idea of manufacturing kid-friendly orthotics.

At the time, Radcliffe was enrolled in the MBA program at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. “So my husband — being the wonderfully supportive human that he is — said, ‘Go see what you can learn,’” she says. She began doing research on children’s adaptive products for a marketing class. Although she discovered that several companies were already making colorful orthotics for children, she saw a huge need elsewhere.

“The more I looked into it, the more I found that this was a whole area that was under-served and underrepresented in the marketplace,” she says.

Radcliffe made the leap from executive to entrepreneur, launching PunkinFutz with a product line of bags for children in wheelchairs and others with limited mobility. From there, the company developed a patented compression vest made of breathable fabric. “We opened ourselves to an entire sensory play world.”

Finding Your Superpower

From the beginning, one point was non-negotiable for Radcliffe and her husband: PunkinFutz would hire people from the disability community.

“When we started the company, our daughter was 20. If I were going to expect someone to employ our daughter, then I’d better be that same employer,” she says.

On the manufacturing end, PunkinFutz initially worked with Helena Industries in Montana, a cut-and-sew operation run by The Arc, a national advocacy organization for people with disabilities. “They were a tremendous partner in taking our designs and helping us refine and produce them,” Radcliffe says. “It’s hard to know how to make a bag for a wheelchair if you’re not sitting in a wheelchair. We need the lived experience of the community for whom we’re making these products.”

Returning to Diduk’s classroom the following semester, Radcliffe ended up taking courses with her throughout all four years of college, including an independent study her senior year.

“She considered herself an ethical humanist. She talked about the way power was used historically, and in ways I’d never considered given my particular background and upbringing. It was so eye-opening,” Radcliffe says. “To this day, I find my views align very strongly with her views that had so shocked me my freshman year. It took four years for me to be able to hear it and a lifetime to process it.”

Diduk also challenged Radcliffe on a personal level. “In my last class with her, she said, ‘Lisa, listen to me. You could go to grad school in German if you wanted to, but please don’t. You would be wasting everyone’s time. You’re not serious enough as a student. You need to decide what you really want to do in the world.’

“It was the most dead-on, important, correct, insightful thing that anyone had ever said to me,” Radcliffe says. “In so many ways, she absolutely changed my life for the better.”

Radcliffe’s greatest regret is not having the opportunity to express her gratitude to Diduk before her death. “Teachers have a huge impact on their students that often doesn’t become apparent until many years later. It’s so important to take a moment to say thank you, because you don’t always know that you’re going to get that chance.”

The Theory of Loose Parts

While Elsa Diduk inspired Radcliffe’s seriousness of purpose, Radcliffe’s father inspired her sense of fun. “He has this wild imagination. He traveled a lot for business, and he would come home and bring my brother and me imaginary friends. He would tell us who the person was, what they looked like, how they dressed, where they went to school, what their language sounded like.

“For us, the idea of play was totally second nature — that, and wonder. My dad still has it,” Radcliffe says.

“He’s in his 80s now, and my mom died several years ago, so it’s really nice that’s he gotten to hear how important he’s been. I’m fortunate to have been able to make my father aware of how much of an impact he had on my thought process.”

The playfulness of PunkinFutz products — from pom-pom fidgets to superhero capes — was a major factor in Sesame Street’s decision to partner with the company.

“We were struck by Lisa’s dedication to making sure that her own kids and kids who have similar challenges have access to products that not only address their needs, but also let them have fun,” says Jeff Chapp, Sesame’s senior director of licensing.

In designing products that spur a child’s imagination, Radcliffe subscribes to what is known as “The Theory of Loose Parts” — an idea first proposed in the 1970s by architect Simon Nicholson. Nicholson argued that materials capable of being moved around, redesigned and recombined produce far greater opportunities for creative engagement.

“If you give a child a product to play with, they’ll play with it in prescribed ways. But if you give them a box of loose parts, they’ll come up with stuff you never thought of,” Radcliffe says. “Our vest, for example, has the only play ability of any product like it on the market. The whole outside is a really soft loop fabric, so that anything Velcro® sticks to it.”

PunkinFutz makes patches and capes to accessorize the vests, and each vest also comes with a supply of Velcoin® fasteners so that children can attach their own favorite items. “One kid stuck a couple of empty plastic soda bottles on the back of the vest and pretended it was a jet pack,” she says.

“We call our curriculum a ‘whole-child’ curriculum,” says Professor Susan Straut Collard, the center’s director and associate chair of the St. Joseph’s Child Study Department. “We work simultaneously on a child’s intellectual development, social development, motor development and language development. Lisa and her team have helped us to understand how their materials can fit into that curriculum.”

Although it may sound counterintuitive, Straut Collard says, PunkinFutz’s fidgets — pom-poms, marble mazes, water bottles and fidgets with a scratchy surface — actually help children focus, improving their learning and social skills.

“Some children are very, very anxious. Some children really need reassurance,” she says. “If we can give a child a fidget during a time of anxiety, the child can put her anxiety into the material — guiding that ball around or feeling that rough fabric — and that frees her up to interact with other children and adults in an appropriate way. It helps her to ask a question when normally her anxiety would cause her to be quiet.”

She notes that PunkinFutz products are appropriate for all children at the Dillon Center, not just those with special needs, something Radcliffe and her team have emphasized in staff training.

Straut Collard cites the example of PunkinFutz’s compression vests. “We keep them in the dress-up area and the kids will sometimes put them on because they’re colorful, they’re decorative,” she says. “If a child is having a bad day and might need to calm their body, they can make the decision to put on the vest themselves or the teacher can suggest it,” she says.

“A teacher might say, ‘Maybe you need an extra hug today,’ and the child doesn’t feel singled out, because the vest is already in the classroom,” adds Danielle Endes, the center’ assistant director and special education coordinator.

Some products are just plain fun, Straut Collard says — like Velcro® PunkinPitch balls, which promote motor development. “Who doesn’t love throwing things?”

How to Get to Sesame Street

The launch of PunkinFutz’s Sesame Street line promises to be a game-changer for the company. For Radcliffe, the partnership made sense both from a business standpoint and from a values perspective.

“It seemed like the timing was just right, to focus on back-to-school for 2021 — to take that trusted Sesame character line and pair them with sensory products that help children to calm and focus,” Radcliffe says, noting the tremendous stress that the pandemic has placed on children.

The genesis of the partnership sprang from a gathering Radcliffe attended at Sesame Street, sponsored by the organization Women in Toys. “They played a couple of videos about what Sesame Street was doing in the world. I had no idea how much of a global impact they had. And I was so struck by it,” she says. “I thought that if we were ever to do licensing, their mission so fits with ours — it’s about human values and the value of play for children.”

When the company reached the point about a year ago when it was ready to consider licensing, Radcliffe had a friend working at Sesame Street who was able to make introductions.

“We were so impressed that Lisa had built this brand. It was something we really hadn’t seen before, and we wanted to complement it with a Sesame touch,” says licensing director Jeff Chapp. “For people who already use PunkinFutz products, we thought it would be a great way for those kids to express their joy of Sesame and what they love about our characters by being able to accessorize the vests or wheelchair bags.”

PunkinFutz’s Sesame products, sold as part of JCPenney’s new adaptive line, include sensory and active child sets packed with a variety of fidgets and a coloring book, Elmo reward stars and collectible character patches, and bags for manual and motorized wheelchairs that can also be used on bikes, walkers or scooters.

“Sesame’s Streets focus, in a few simple words, is that we want to make sure that we can help kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder. Partnering with PunkinFutz is a no-brainer for us,” Chapp says. “I think we’re even more excited to work with Lisa than she is with us.”