Our annual Luau For a Day in Rochester was another successful evening! There were stations for nails, makeup, tiaras, face paint, bowling, ring toss, crafts, photos, music and the newly designed LIMBO! There were four boys, three girls, and five family members in attendance, with four of the For a Day committee members running the event.

There was a teenage mother, whose baby was delivered seven weeks early and was in the NICU, who hung around to talk movies with a couple of committee members. There was also a girl who was 18, in a wheelchair and using a feeding tube, who had a blast with makeup. She requested to do her mother’s makeup and, of course, mom fulfilled the request.

One little boy decided he wanted to do his own makeup – black eyeshadow, dark lipstick and black nail polish. He spent a fair amount of time trying to convince his friend to get his makeup done. The little friend stuck around for one nail and he was gone!

Another child made the night very memorable. A young boy had been all over the world. Doctors found a tumor in him in the United States, and attempted to remove it. The family moved to Singapore for dad’s work, and the boy again had surgery there, as the cancer was not completely removed. As the surgeon was performing the surgery, he quickly realized it was even more problematic than he thought, so the family was sent back to the states for more surgery and proton treatment. The family enjoyed every part of the evening, including telling their story to our team.

As many know, we’ve been fortunate to have Miss MN USA and Miss Teen MN USA attend many of our events over the years, and though we didn’t have one in attendance this time, we might very well have had a future titleholder in our presence. She was somewhere between two and three years old, and was extremely excited for makeup and tiaras. As we learned more about her, we understood exactly why. The little girl has already been in 19 pageants, and won EVERY one of them. She has a future in the pageant world, for sure.

The event was another great example of how a smaller turnout provides much more relatedness and allows more families to soak up the attention they so deserve. We will be back to the Ronald McDonald soon!!