Labor Day Weekend, the Ms. Wheelchair California program had the opportunity to be a part of the wonderful festivities of the Long Beach "Greek Festival By the Sea" at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church. Thousands of people attended to enjoy the live music, dancing, delicious food, art, jewelry, and much, much more! 
I signed a lot of autographs and had two great helpers that gave me an "official tour" of the entire festival. One was the niece of the director who put the whole festival together! They were so sweet, and eventually wanted me to try my luck at darts so that I could hopefully win a prize!
Here I am getting ready to aim at the balloons. You have three darts and have to hit a balloon each time in order to win a prize. I was only allowed to throw one (the other girls wanted to throw one, too).
Ready, set, fire!! And I hit it! Hooray!!
The girls were so sweet and allowed me to pick out what ever framed picture I wanted. Of all the fantastic fair-type prizes to choose from, I chose a lovely framed picture of Marilyn Monroe. 
As you can see, it was such a hot day! My pictures start getting not as pretty as we go because we were all sweating so much! But, it didn't keep the little girls from admiring my crown and sash and waiting in line to take pictures with me!
I even got my picture taken with Nathan Honda of the Long Beach Fire Department!
And then the cutest little girl who happened to be a double amputee was searching everywhere to get a picture with me when she finally saw me. It broke my heart that she didn't have the proper assistive devices to get around as freely as she should be afforded, but her spirits and smile were certainly contagious. She was precious!
However, once the belly dancers started, no one seemed to even take notice at Ms. Wheelchair California! Ha!
Larry and I (from Kiwanis) sold roses to a lot of the attendees in order to raise money for the Rose Parade. We made a great team and were very convincing as we sold rose after rose!
After a long day of amazing food, fun music, and fantastic people, we were all tired and ready to go home after this fun day in the sun. Here is Larry posing with one of the roses and then me with my state coordinator, Ruthee Goldkorn. Hooray for a great day in Long Beach!
looks like you had fun! sorry i missed it!
ReplyDeletehey Alison this is one of the girls that showed u around at the long beach greek festivel i was the one with the black shirt hope ur doing good <3 :]
ReplyDeleteIoanna
Hi Ioanna! Thank you so much for helping show me all around that day! I had so much fun, and you are a very good hostess! :) Would love to see you the next time the Festival happens! Hope you're enjoying yourself these days!
ReplyDelete