The MWG of the 501st was contacted by a family whose son suffers from life-threatening food allergies. Tyler will not be able to go to school (he will have to be home schooled) with the rest of his friends and can't go to many places that normal children are able to go to.
When we were contacted, we were made aware of Tyler's medical condition and our troops had to take some extra precautions for this event. We needed to launder the soft parts of our costume and then once laundered we could not handle food, nor were we able to eat any food or bring any "treats" along with us. Tyler's allgergies are so severe that these precautions had to be followed to the letter.
Thanks go out to our participants who did this event:
Jason - SL1719
Cheryl - TI3127 - RL and Jedi Assembly member - our Jedi Trainer
Mark - TB8063
Myself - TK 1951 - also RL and Jedi Assembly member
We arrived at the house sending our Jedi downstairs to warm the kids up with Jedi Training. Tyler is a huge Jedi/Luke Skywalker fan. All of the kids were given a lightsaber in their party goody bag. After about 10 minutes of Cheryl going over some basic Jedi lightsaber stances, Lord Vader and his "henchmen" were called downstairs to invade the party.
I went in first, and it was so cute to see all of the kids holding their lightsabers up to me....of course ...there were a few who ran the other way.....lol...
then Mark in Biker Scout and Jason in Vader entered the room...things got real quiet once the Dark Lord of the Sith made it into the room.
We had a couple of my special Star Wars inspired games to play with the kids and brought plenty of prizes with us in the form of Star Wars toys.
Many of the kids were too scared to come forth to start the "Target Shoot" game so Cheryl started them out with the "Hot Thermal Detonator" game. This got them relaxed and we moved into the Target Shoot next. The kids had a blast with this game. We had two of the Rebel Nerf blasters-one in green and one in blue and divided the kids into the Rebel Alliance Team and the Galactic Empire Team. The Imperials shot at the Rebel Target and the Rebels shot at the Imperial Target...
The Imperial Team won....Lord Vader was proud...lol...
After finishing the games...we took some photos with the participants and were on our way back to our ships.
After very tearfull good-byes from the mom...we made our way back to Mark's house which served as the central meeting place.
Huge thanks go out to our Jedi Cheryl Whitaker...she had to be the eyes, ears, and hands of the group...her and I were supposed to do this together in our Jedi costumes but since we had only 2 other Imperials available, I had to swap my costume and wear Stormtrooper.
We left the party with donations to Children's Memorial from Tyler's parents, and a donation to "Make A Wish" from Tyler's Aunt (who will be undergoing brain surgery next week)...
Quote of the Day:
As I discovered that I forgot a few pieces of our game in my Jeep...I had to schlepp back up the stairs at the house...out the front door..and down the block to retrieve the pieces....as I made my way back to the house one of the neighbors was in his driveway...took one look at me in my Stormtrooper and said...
"Well, there's something you don't see every day"...
PHOTOS:
My photos: courtesy of one of the moms who had my camera:
http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa30 ... %208-5-07/
Cheryl's photos:
http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x273 ... -%20Tyler/
