Volunteering at the Sunrise Walks

Hello loves! A few weeks ago we helped spread hope and love as we volunteered with Sunrise Walks! Sunrise Walks is an organization that inspires communities to come and work together to raise money so that children with pediatric cancer and their siblings can go to camp for free! Isn’t that amazing? One less thing for the parents to worry about and it allows the children to forget about their illness for a while and just enjoy being a kid! I personally love this organization and wish that we would have started volunteering with them earlier, but you gotta start somewhere and better late than never!

We partnered with Magical memories to volunteer as beloved Tangled characters Rapunzel and Flynn! If you wanna see where I got my costume you can find the link here! Or if you want to find out how I made the wig my own you can check it out here!

When we first walked in we were greeted by volunteers of all ages, some surprised and excited to see characters. Before the walkers all got there Lucas and I did a quick look-around to explore the starting area. We found a breakfast booth and sitting area, radio station booth in an outdoor auditorium, and even a giant teepee hut! Once the walkers started coming in we were able to go in and out of the crowd, taking pictures with a few fans and interacting with everyone. We stopped at craft booths including face painting, hand prints, paper butterfly coloring and more! We even stopped to take a few pictures with our new friends running the booths too!

Then we heard over a loudspeaker that all participants were to report to the basketball court. Up a short hill we found a temporary stage with the board members for the camp whom were running the walk. They gave an inspiring speech about the walk and directed everyone to the start line. Lucas and I lined up with the rest of them and began our walk. We were able to take many breaks when people walking by would ask for pictures and we would pull to the side and say hello. One pit stop was for two of the cutest kids! We got an awesome video of us walking with them hand in hand, too cute!

While we were on the walk we pretty much got an awesome tour of the whole camp. Who knew we had such a large area for a camp on Long Island? I thought we would walk a few laps to make a 5k but it just kept going. The camp had 4 pools, a rock climbing wall, archery field, playgrounds, a driving range and so much more! It made me so happy to see that such a camp exists especially for children with pediatric cancer.

At the end of our walk Lucas and I were exhausted but put on a big smile to cross the finish line! We were welcomed into a large pavillion-like area where there were games for the kids, bounce houses galore, and clowns making balloon animals. Not to mention us as characters! We made our way through the crowd to give everyone one more chance to take pictures with their favorite Tangled characters before  we headed out. On our way out there was a performance by a baton troupe too! So much love and volunteer work for these kids is absolutely heartwarming and we couldn’t have been happier to be a part of it!

Have you volunteered your time recently? Share your experiences in the comments below!Volunteering at the Sunrise Walks