Friday’s “Night To Shine,” hosted at Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church, gave people with special needs a fun event to look forward to.
Paula Bowman, “Night To Shine” committee member, said, “Tonight is the night to let them shine and sparkle and just have fun. We want to treat them like it’s their prom and just make it super special with the dinner, the dance, the flowers, as if they were going to a regular prom.”
She said “Night To Shine” gives guests something to look forward to all year.
In previous years, Bowman said, the makeup, registration, shoe shine and hair were done at the First United Methodist Church across the street from Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church, where the event is hosted. This year’s event has outgrown FUMC for that part of the night and guests prepared at Joe’s Kids.
Bowman said Grace College has prom dresses and suits and ties guests can wear for the event at no cost to them. Male Fashions also does shoe shining for the men for the event.
Guests and buddies are picked up from Joe’s Kids by Elite Whiteman Limo and taken to WEPC. Guests then enter WEPC, where they are greeted by a welcome squad.

    Guests and buddies start a congo line at the “Night to Shine” event Friday in the gymnasium at Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union
  

After guests and their buddies arrived at the hosting church, they could have dinner prepared for the event or have their pictures taken. Then everybody got to be crowned a king or queen. Each of the female guests are given a tiara and the guys get crowns.
The buddies have so much fun with the guests and “we want to show them a really good time,” she said.
Buddies are caregivers for the guest for the night to help the guest with food and keep them company. Buddies have to be at least 14 years old, but it is preferred buddies are guests are at least 18. There are a lot of buddies from Warsaw Community High School and Grace College.
“Night To Shine” tries to cap guests at 150. Bowman said they try to have one buddy for every guest. This year, there were 140 guests and 130 buddies attending “Night To Shine” on Friday.
She also said it takes about 80 people as volunteers with everything including kitchen crew, hospital crew, parking and what’s out at Joe’s Kids.
This is the eighth year Warsaw has done “Night To Shine” and the seventh year WEPC has hosted the event.
Each host church is responsible for planning and hosting their local expression of “Night to Shine” with support and resources from the Tim Tebow Foundation, according to the Tim Tebow Foundation website.
Bowman said Night To Shine takes a lot of funding to put the event on, usually between $4,000 and $5,000. The Tim Tebow Foundation does help Warsaw’s event a little, but Bowman said Warsaw is expected to be self-funded for next year.
For anyone interested in donating to “Night To Shine,” they can call WEPC yearround.