Smiles for miles

Imagine football fanatics finding out the Super Bowl will be held in their hometown every year from now on — now say you told them tickets, concessions and entertainment at the event would all be free. Can't fathom their excitement?

Diane Hayes can.

For her and her three daughters, each with special needs, their Super Bowl equivalent is the Make 'm Smile community festival.

"We put it on our calendar, and it's something for our girls to look forward to all year long," Hayes said. "It's the Super Bowl for our family. It's the biggest thing of the year."

The Make 'm Smile event is dedicated to celebrating kids with special needs — known as VIPs — who live in the Orlando community. The festival will be held this year from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 5, at Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando.

The event features a Buddy Stroll in which VIPs and their family are buddied-up with a "typical" family from the community for a walk around the lake. Set up around the lake are games, food, music and other types of entertainment, free to all in attendance, as well as providers offering specialized services geared toward the needs of the VIPs and their families.

Hayes said each year she attends the festival, she discovers a service that benefits her children. These services range from an orthodontist who could cater to the needs of her autistic daughter Molly, to a summer camp that all three of her daughters could attend and thrive.

The event is presented by Nathaniel's Hope, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children with disabilities and their families. The organization was founded by Marie and Tim Kuck in memory of their son Nathaniel, who was born prematurely with multiple special needs. In honor of Nathaniel and all others who have lost children with special needs, families who attend Make 'm Smile can release a butterfly in tribute to their loved ones.

When the festival started eight years ago, Marie Kuck, the executive director of the event, said it began as a "grassroots" event with about 600 attendees. This year she anticipates between 7,500 and 8,000 attendees. With this growth, the need for funding and donations has grown as well. Nathaniel's Hope accepts donations and holds fundraisers to support Make 'm Smile as well other events they host throughout the year. These including Caroling for Kids, during Christmastime; Buddy Break, a free respite care-service offered yearlong; and a VIP Birthday Club.

Kuck said the current economic troubles have put some strain on this year's fundraising, noting it's taken multiple sponsors to do what one sponsor had done in previous years.

"It is a little bit harder to elicit some of those things because the economy has been rough on people, so we just have to work a little harder," Kuck said.

Dianne Brown, who has also attended Make 'm Smile with her son Daniel, who has special needs, since it began, said watching the growth of the event firsthand has been amazing, but she is not surprised by its success. "Coming to something like this is every kid's dream," she said.

Diane Hayes agrees. "It's great that every single place we stop there celebrates our children's abilities," she said. "No one looks at them different — they're the ones who are the same there and those of us who are typical are the ones who are different that day."

And to her, Brown and Kuck, the ability to give that gift to their children, and the rest of the special needs community, is more valuable than any sporting event.