BREA — Seven years ago, Monica McEntee met a little boy who changed her life.

The 12-year-old had no money to buy school supplies so McEntee invited him to go on a shopping spree. She offered him any toy he desired. But the only thing he wanted, she recalled with a tear, was a pair of new underwear.

"Suddenly I realized that some kids have to face such a harsh reality that they have no time for fantasy," said the mother of three from Brea.

This is fantasy time for McEntee.

Not satisfied with the food and everyday clothing she used to donate to children's shelters, McEntee each Halloween for five years has decked out homeless and needy children at a different shelter or group home across the county. She scours yard sales and thrift shops all year long, searching for a sparkling roll of gold lame fabric for a ballerina's tutu or a frayed bandanna for a cowboy get-up.

To make as many as 100 costumes, a vast network of her friends and neighbors donate everything from used soccer uniforms and plastic hangers to intricately woven angel's wings for an emerald green Tinkerbell costume and silver sparklers for a baby Elvis jacket.

One friend recently mailed a five-pound package of pine cones for a forest-motif "I'm a nut" costume McEntee had planned.

"I was at a garage sale a few months ago and I got really excited because I found these tomato slippers," she said, waving the fuzzy red shoe as she spoke.

"The owners must have thought I was crazy but I was thinking 'I'm going to make some little kid a tomato.' "

While many people volunteer for needy children at Thanksgiving and Christmas, few remember Halloween, she says.

"It's great to give food and clothes, but kids need a lot more than that," said McEntee, 36. "Halloween is their day. A day to feed their imaginations."

*

After tucking her children Melissa, 8, and Johnny, 5, into bed at night, McEntee heads for her rumpus room to make costumes from rags.

Magic wands, pompons and yards of shiny fabric spill out of every corner of her otherwise tidy house. Armed with her trusty glue gun, she is transformed from self-described humdrum mom to costume designer gone mad.

McEntee, who once worked for a designer, has loved to sew ever since her doting Italian grandmother taught her how. Growing up in a cash-strapped family of seven in Brooklyn, she learned how to make something out of nothing.