MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — On Friday, a very special group of VIPs will hit the dance floor and the red carpet at Airborne Church in Martinsburg.
It’s part of the Tim Tebow Foundation’s Night to Shine prom, during which honored guests ages 14 and up with special needs are welcomed like royalty. One of those honored guests is Grace Karolenko. She was a recent guest on Panhandle Live.
“It’s fun but also gets an opportunity for you to feel like you’re more. Important than you usually feel because you get to go and. Being a spotlight, you get to have fun, you get to enjoy company and you get to feel like you’re a little bit like royalty. So it’s actually is a really good time.”
Event Coordinator Rose Mooney talked about the special neighbors who will be attending. “We spend our time serving the people that come to our prom who often get unnoticed. There are people that that are in the community that have a hard time connecting sometimes, especially with winter in the winter time and also being over 21. When they were in school, they have a lot of activities and they have interactions every day within the school system. But once they hit 21, they’re out on their own, so their families and they themselves have a very hard time connecting.”
Mooney, who is also Grace’s mom, says it’s their third year partnering with the Tim Tebow Foundation. “Initially, we teamed with the local high schools for Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan counties. In the first year, we did a prom with them,” she says. “Their concentration is for school age 14 to 21. We realize that there’s a real need for folks that are above 21 to also enjoy the event. So we teamed with Tim Tebow and in 2024 we did our very first Night to Shine.”
“It’s for ages 14 and above, and last year our oldest guest honored guest was 76,” Mooney says.
“It’s very exciting,” to see it grow says Mooney. “We spend our time serving these people, the people that come to our prom who often get unnoticed. There are people that that are in the community that have a hard time connecting sometimes, especially in the winter time and also being over 21.”
“When they’re in school, they have a lot of activities and they have interactions every day within the school system,” Mooney says. “But once they hit 21, they’re out on their own. So their families and they themselves have a very hard time connecting.”
“We started a group (at Airborne) called Shining Stars, which was the first step within the church before we started the prom.”
The goal, she says is to get folks together “for fun and fellowship and food and to have those relational connections with each other.”
Mary Beth Blair is on the communications team for Airborne Church. “I think it’s really important just to look at different categories of people and get together those communities where they can have common interests, just to build relationship. And so this is one of the many special groups that we do offer. We have small groups. At Airborne and as Rose said, the Shining Stars have monthly meetings and events.”
During the Night to Shine, the promgoers, referred to as Honored Guests, are not the only folks to get pampered.
“One thing that’s really important,” Blair says, “is it’s not just for the honored guests.” They are, the focus, she says, “to make them feel loved and honored by not only reminding them they are loved by God in that way, but also that we love them.”
She says the volunteers “have as much fun honestly as they do.”
“But I will say that one of the great parts about this event is we also cater to the caregiver. The caregiver often is maybe overlooked and have a lot on them.”
“And so they have a special part of the program,” Blair says. “We take them to a special area and we have what we call a caregiver’s respite. And that’s another community of people who get to have time away and do just an adult get together.” That will include a live band and refreshments.
“They’re not allowed in the prom,” although they can see the dance live streamed in the respite area.
“Let your let your your son or daughter go to the prom. You get to be with your friends and your adults and talk to people,” Blair says. “The kids love it, but also the caregivers get that opportunity to to be pampered.
Grace Karolenko will be one of the Honored Guests Friday night, but she also has helped organize the event. It’s not her first prom.
“I’ve been through a bunch of proms and they are always all different. But with Night to Shine it, it’s funk but it also (gives you) an opportunity for you to feel like you’re more important than you usually feel because you get to go and be in a spotlight. You get to have fun, you get to enjoy company and you get to feel like you’re a little bit like royalty. So it’s actually is a really good time.”
Ahead of the event, Grace was a guest on Panhandle Live and had already picked out her shoes but was still working on choosing a dress, explaining she usually picks a color she wants to go with and then narrowing down her choices of dresses from there.
“ I like to go and each prom have a different color,” she explains, adding, “I don’t like to wear the same dress more than once.”
This year’s theme is “Love in Paris.”
Mary Beth Blair said a number of community volunteers take part in the event, including title holders with the Miss West Virginia pageant organization and sheriff’s deputies. Blair, whose husband is Berkeley County Sheriff Rob Blair.
“His team that those who came, they really were surprised at how much they enjoyed themselves as well.” Following the event, several of the honored guests said one of the things they really enjoyed was dancing with the deputies. “They called them all the sheriffs and they enjoyed dancing with the sheriffs,” Blair says.
Each honored guest gets a volunteer buddy. The organizers say, in fact, that the volunteer ration works out to about 4:1 volunteer to honored guest.
“Of course, they’re not all there that night, but for set up for breakdown, including, you know, getting the food and the food service,” Blair says of the massive volunteer effort.
“It’s an incredible event that not only is very safe, but it’s fun,” says Mooney. “We have a sensory room, so if our honored guest gets overwhelmed, they can go to a quiet area. And just sit and relax and do some things in there.”
There are appearances from characters like the Chick-fil-a cow. There is a salon and a shoe shine station. “. Oh yes, we do hair and makeup as well. We have a shoeshine for them that are honored guests love. Many of them had never had a shoe shine,” Mooney explains. “They get limousine rides, they walk a red carpet, they go and they get a corsage or a boutonniere, They get crowned, they get shoe shines and and hair done, nails. So it’s quite an evening.”
For those who have attended in the past, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, both for the guests and their caregivers. “They, they are just so grateful. It’s brought tears to their eyes. People just are just so, so incredibly grateful that we’re able to do this. And they start calling me around November to find out when registrations are going to open, which they don’t open till January.”
“They’ve had a night that is so unforgettable that it just, you know, fills their heart.”
For her part, Grace, says, “I believe that one of my favorite parts of the prom that we’ve been doing is not really about all the things you said. I think it’s more about the smiles and the enjoyment of all the guests that get to come and how much fun they get to enjoy and how they look Is part of it ’cause you also want to see how beautiful all the people are.”
The event happens around the nation and around the world on the same day. As for the Martinsburg event, which could bring in as many as 300 Honored Guests, Mooney says, “We will accept guests from anywhere. Usually we get guests from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and also of course here from the Eastern Panhandle. We reach far and ride and there’s no one that we would turn down.”
“The event is worldwide. It happens in 63 countries. Here in the US, 50 states participate. There are 822 host churches as of last year. They had 180,000 volunteers last year and 170 a 107,000 plus honored guests worldwide. So it all happens on February 13th of course with. Zone changes, it’s a little bit different, but it’s all over the world,” says Mooney.