HARRISBURG (BRN) – From the moment they walk in they are celebrated. Met with cheers, clapping and signs of encouragement held by hands they may have never met, they step onto the red carpet and make an entrance. They are championed as God’s valued sons and daughters, crowned kings and queens who have been given a night to shine.
This is the experience many guests of Night to Shine have, and the heartbeat of the Tim Tebow Foundation, the founding organization of Night to Shine. Night to Shine started in 2015 as a “simple idea to celebrate the Foundation’s 5-year anniversary,” as stated on the foundation’s website.
It quickly grew into a worldwide movement. Every year, churches across the globe host a Night to Shine, a prom for people with special needs, simultaneously on the Friday before Valentine’s Day. The purpose of Night to Shine, no matter where it is held, is to show God’s love to those with special needs and invite their surrounding community to value, honor and support them as well as their families.
In 2022, a total of 39 countries participated in Night to Shine. For 2024, there are already more than 500 churches/locations committed to hosting Night to Shine in the United States alone. Domestically, in Pennsylvania, there are 31 churches signed up to host Night to Shine in 2024 – four of them being Baptist Resource Network affiliated churches, who also participated last week in the 2023 Night to Shine.
On Feb. 10, Calvary Church Harvest Fields in Boalsburg, Catalyst Church in Altoona, Riverbend Community Church in Allentown and The Vine Church in Schnecksville all teamed up with the Tim Tebow Foundation to host a Night to Shine for the special needs people in their communities.
Smiles in Happy Valley
Only two years after the Tim Tebow Foundation launched Night to Shine, Calvary Church Harvest Fields got on board and held their first Night to Shine in 2017.
Since then, every year – with the exception of the past two years, due to COVID – Calvary has rolled out the red carpet, set up the dance floor and watched Night to Shine impact its community.
“It’s a great opportunity to get other people and other organizations involved. I mean, our kind of key mission statement is we want to build a church without walls, and part of that is having no walls between the church and the community,” said Senior Pastor at Calvary Church Harvest Fields Dan Nold.
“We serve nonprofits and support nonprofits in the area who are working with people with special needs, and people from Calvary volunteer there. So, it’s a great bridge event…that kind of bridges us and the community for a great cause.”
Those relational bridges remained stable the past two years as Calvary was unable to host Night to Shine in-person. This year Calvary found itself surrounded by community support, enlisting a total of 250 volunteers to serve and love 165 Night to Shine guests.
“Each guest gets a buddy – so there’s 160 (volunteers) just there – and then we provide a respite room for the parents, so there’s volunteers making that a great experience, and we have two karaoke rooms and so there’s volunteers. There are volunteers doing hair, shoeshine and that kind of stuff ahead of time…[and] there’s limo rides, pictures, pinball machines and a dinner, so you got all the volunteers for that too,” explained Nold.
He continued: “It just opens people’s hearts up a little bit more [and] reminds us that we’re all a part of the same team.”
In one specific moment, Nold saw the impact of Night to Shine as he was talking to one of the volunteers.
“I was talking to one lady who was volunteering, and she said, “You know, in the last five minutes I went from laughter to tears.'”
Nold expounded, “In the space of a moment, [it was] good tears and strong laughter, but it’s (Night to Shine) a great opportunity to smile [and] to see people smile – that kind of marks the evening for me, just how many smiling faces you see.”
Shining a little differently
Just a few miles down Interstate 99 from Calvary is Altoona, Pennsylvania, where another Night to Shine host resides, Catalyst Church.
This year was Catalyst’s fourth year participating in Night to Shine, but similarly to Calvary, it was the church’s first time hosting the event in-person since 2020.
“It was kind of slow in the beginning,” remarked Rev. Michael Blackie, senior pastor at Catalyst Church.
“My wife spearheaded this [and] she and her team obviously crushed it, but they had set a deadline for applying…and by deadline we were at like 38.”
According to the Tim Tebow Foundation guidelines for Night to Shine, each host location is recommended to have at least 75 guests.
In the days following their deadline, Catalyst soon surpassed that suggested number.
“That deadline hit and it just blew up,” said Blackie. “We had people just showing up, and so we had to scramble. We had extra volunteers that had already been vetted and had their criminal history checks and training, so we were good to go.”
In total, Catalyst served about 130 guests at their Night to Shine, an increase from their first year when they had 95 guests.
Along with rolling out the red carpet, crowning each guest and some of the other Night to Shine traditions, Catalyst added its own flare to the event.
As the guests arrived, Blackie along with a local TV station announcer introduced each individual guest by name as well as shared a fun fact about that person.
“We found out a little bit of something about them on their application. So, we had one guest, Sparky is his name [and] he’s like a staple in Altoona. He’s also in the Special Olympics Hall of Fame. So that was part of it,” explained Blackie.
“We’re like, ‘Hey Night to Shine, welcome Sparky Lyle and interesting thing here, Sparky is in the Blair County Special Olympics Hall of Fame.’ That’s just a little bit of something else to make them feel just a little more valued.”
The church also set up a special respite room for the parents, which included dinner catered by Olive Garden, and a memorial table for those in the special needs community that have passed away since the last Night to Shine.
“So, there was a guest that came the first year, [and] last year we did what’s called a ‘Shine-thru,’ it was like the Tebow Foundation’s attempt to try and get people in-person without being in-person, but she showed up to the event. She died this year [and] they set up an area – it was like a high-top cafe table – that was dedicated just to Danielle. It had her pictures [and] it had flowers – her favorite color,” shared Blackie.
“Th is going to be a thing that they want to do each year. For all of the guests that we find out throughout the course of this year that we may lose, they’re going to recognize them on a regular basis. Just so their families feel that, you know, you’re still part of this.”
The final flare Catalyst gives Night to Shine is probably the most unique – and, quite possibly, the most out of this world.
“We typically have [at Night to Shine], the 501st, they’re a Star Wars Lucasfilm sanctioned, international group. We have one in the area and they send a bunch of Stormtroopers up and they participate in the event each year,” said Blackie.
He continued: “It’s hilarious and you just got Stormtroopers running around everywhere and they love interacting.”
Not only has this particular addition to Night to Shine impacted the guests and enhanced their experience, but it has also opened the door for gospel opportunities.
“The neat thing was, the first year we had them the organizer, says ‘Okay, we’ll make an appearance… number two, this is kind of a church event and we have a lot of people who are just agnostic or atheists.’”
Blackie continued: “They got through the first year and they stayed the whole time. They listened to the gospel presentation and they listened to all of those things and they said, ‘We’ll be back every year.'”
A night to collaborate
From Stormtroopers to Smokestacks, Riverbend Community Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, teamed up with The Vine Church to host their sixth annual Night to Shine at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Surrounded by the rustic, towering smokestacks of the Lehigh Valley, the ArtsQuest Center welcomed nearly 650 people for this collaborative Night to Shine.
“We really viewed this event as an opportunity to bring our whole community together, both our church community [and] also our local community,” said Riverbend Community Church Senior Pastor Joe Velarde.
“So, this year, we did it at the ArtsQuest Center, so that allowed us to have more room and to actually be visible for the whole valley and to connect with it in that way.”
Once they found their venue, Riverbend and The Vine went to work to get other community organizations and local volunteers involved.
“We involved and invited others to join in and so, in that, we saw people donate things like limo rides, karaoke, we had a shoeshine/makeup area and we also had so much dancing.”
“It’s really allowed us to have a good rapport with our local community and people who, as we go to them – whether it’s ArtsQuest or whether it’s other businesses – are just really open to being a part of it. And we pray that God would open up other doors through that as well. You know, just to see a church truly exist for something more than itself,” said Velarde.
Throughout the night, the Lehigh Valley volunteers looked for ways to serve their guests by providing service dogs, a sensory room and crowning each guest as a king or queen.
Following the crowning ceremony, Velarde and Pastor Adam Kern from The Vine Church shared the gospel with all 650 attendees, this included the guests, their family members, community leaders and volunteers.
“I had the privilege of being able to share the gospel briefly at the end. I mean, you know, I only had like a minute, but very clearly, we tied this event to salvation through Christ, and the response from many people that weren’t saved was that they had a great experience,” said Kern.
This year was Kern’s third time volunteering with Riverbend for Night to Shine, but the first time The Vine and Riverbend teamed up for the event.
Kern, plus 15-20 volunteers from The Vine, helped throughout the night. One leadership couple from The Vine, whose daughter was attending Night to Shine, spent their night serving other special needs parents by providing a respite room. Other volunteers from The Vine, Riverbend and the community spent time with the guests, dancing, giving limo rides, taking pictures and making sure they all felt loved.
“I think one of the things that was most amazing is this was not a Riverbend or The Vine event meant to like grow our ministries, it was very much like a God’s Kingdom event in the community. Many people of many different church backgrounds, and even some that aren’t, gathered together and they just wanted to serve in a good cause,” said Kern.
“There was just endless amounts of smiles and memories that were made for the guests and then to even step back and watch their parents…their children who have, admittedly, had a really rough road to probably get here, to see them celebrated [and] to feel great worth and value.”
Calvary, Catalyst, Riverbend and The Vine plan to continue advancing the gospel and loving their communities through Night to Shine in 2024. To learn more about Night to Shine or to become a host church visit the Tim Tebow Foundation website.
