8/04/19 St. Mary's Hospital NICU Event, Rochester, MN

Our annual NICU event was held at St. Mary’s in Rochester this year. We had approximately 60 girls, 50 boys, and 300 family members in attendance. We had five of our committee members there working hard to keep up with all the action!

The weather was perfect with sunshine for most of the afternoon in the courtyard, where we had nail painting, tattoo, makeup and face painting stations. We also had bean bags, ring toss and relay games for the “Under the Sea” theme. The big hit was definitely face painting. One of our committee members took on face painting and took special requests from any and all. She painted a LOT of mermaids and sharks.

We had to eventually put a stop to the face painting line, as it likely would have lasted another hour or two. Many of the kids also wanted tattoos, nail polish and makeup applied, so all committee members stayed busy for the entire two-hour event.

One of the best parts about the event was a family that checked in and was spotted by Mara, one of our committee members. Mara recognized them from the previous year’s NICU event (she remembers EVERYTHING) and it turns out the twin girls and their parents were actually in one of our pictures, and on our 5K save the date cards we had sitting out that day! The girls were so darn cute, it’s easy to see why Mara remembered them.

NICU staff were extremely helpful in setting up, tearing down, providing food and drink, and in being interactive with the kids and our stations. The NICU event, while extremely busy, was again a very rewarding event and is on the list of events that will be annual. We look forward to the next time we can be a part of that NICU reunion!