Quad Cities Night to Shine guest Selah Bucciferro, left, takes a walk on the red carpet with her sister, Amy, at The Bend XPO in East Moline, Ill., in this file photo.
By Barb Arland-Fye
The Catholic Messenger
Supporters are praying that “Night to Shine” won’t go dark in the Quad-Cities region, which has celebrated this extraordinary prom event for persons with special needs ages 14 and older since 2017. The glitzy, glamorous, over-the-top prom, underwritten by the Tim Tebow Foundation and local donors, brings joy to guests with special needs who eagerly await their crowning as queens and kings during their Night to Shine.
It is a feast of music, dancing, food, photos and friendship held on the night closest to Valentine’s Day around the world. Tebow wants to encourage people to think beyond love as romantic and to embrace unconditional love.
“There is currently no host church for the 2025 Night to Shine,” said Jennifer Hildebrand, a member of Our Lady of the River Parish in LeClaire, which hosted its first Night to Shine in 2017 at the Waterfront Convention Center in Bettendorf. “God has always provided for this event, and I’m hopeful this will be the case in 2025.”
Hildebrand and a large group of volunteers organized the first and subsequent Night to Shine events at various venues and with various faith communities, including Risen Christ Lutheran Church in Davenport. Another Quad-City area church volunteered to take over hosting responsibilities in 2024. That event drew 550 guests, 550 “buddies” and several-hundred other volunteers who assisted with duties such as check-in, coat check, hairstyling, limo rides and crowning of kings and queens.
Volunteers and guests often dress in formal wear, with the guests taking delight in the celebrity treatment they receive for one night of their lives. Whatever struggles they live with because of autism, Down syndrome, learning disability, emotional, mental or physical disability, fade into the background for three hours that night.
Seeing the look of pure joy on the faces of guests brings back volunteer Kathy Cox each year. “I’ve gotten to know some of the guests and some of their parents, too,” said Cox, an Our Lady of the River parishioner. Every year, she and guest Mary Beth “look forward to having our picture taken together.”
Cox has volunteered as a buddy, worked in coat check, assisted with volunteer training and as a jack-of-all-trades. Volunteers “have no idea how their life will be impacted. They come and they are blown away,” said Cox, who holds back tears thinking about the event’s impact on her.
Jaime Hughes-Sandoval, a longtime Night to Shine volunteer, coordinates all the photographers for the event in the Quad-Cities region. A friend introduced her to it. “Once I started volunteering, I never wanted to stop. It’s such a neat experience,” she said, to see the “happiness and the joy in the faces of the guests. There’s nothing like it.” She hopes a new host will volunteer to keep the night shining. “People look forward to it every year.”
“There are available funds for the event and a base of interested, long-term volunteers willing to help. We need a faith community, a group to take this on,” Hildebrand said. “This event can be tailored to the host church. It could be 50 guests eating pizza in the church hall.”
Potential host faith communities must apply to be a host through the Tim Tebow Foundation. Contact Hildebrand at kjhildebrand@windstream.net or 563-370-4412 if your faith community is interested in learning more about or hosting Night to Shine. Time is of the essence for planning purposes, she said. “My fear is that if we skip a year, this event will be difficult to resurrect in the future.”
I’m so glad a church stepped up. I was a part of NTS from the first year. Still wear the shirt I recieved. Looking forward to the next one. Sorry the event was dumped. But thrilled about the new sponsorship.