Miss Minnesota Week Day 2(:

Yesterday the Miss Minnesota Scholarship Organization dedicated the entire day just to the Gillette Children's hospital, which is Minnesota's Children's Miracle Network hospital. We broke off into two groups, one went on a tour and one stayed behind in the waiting area for patients and family to wait for their appointments, and later we are switched spots. Although, my group of 11 girls stayed behind first with the families I'm going to talk about the tour we had the amazing opportunity to go on. We headed off right away down the halls with our tour guide; I never had the chance to ask her name. She pointed out different wings that housed children with all sorts of different a reasons. I learned that this hospital is a "60-bed hospital" which is, what it sounds like! It has 60 beds which means 60 patients stay there at a time. This hospital sees 25,000 patients a year, and with only 60 beds, they estimate that about 13,000 patients are in their out patient care system. We also went and visited the lab in which they make personalized casts, braces, wheel chair seats, and sometimes prosthetic limbs. That was very close to home with me because my father has a prosthetic leg, and I realized how blessed my father is to have only had a portion of his leg removed when some of these kids lose entire limbs, or are born without them! It's amazing how much care goes into these casts and braces. It makes the kids excited to wear the casts that they would have hated before. While the other group was on the tour, my group was able to decorate cookies with the families and it was SO much fun. Those kids love their frosting! I had the opportunity to connect with a lot of the mothers of the children while they stood their watching their sons and daughters. I did get the permission to talk about this family on my blog. I met the Richter family, and wow they really opened my eyes! Mrs. Richter is from here in the twin cities and when her daughter Natalie Richter was born with a very minor case of cerebral palsy. Natalie is still in elementary school, she attends regular classes at her school! She is a math class a grade above her, she's in the top of her class, and she reads at an extraordinary level. That just goes to show that just because you have a physical disability, it does not automatically mean you have a mental handicap as well. Natalie had a smile on her face the entire time, for the three hours that we visited with her. She's truly an inspiration and a reason to be happy! The rest of yesterday was rehearsal for the contestants and Rachel and I had time to relax!

Au Revoir jusqu'à demain!
(Goodbye until tomorrow)
-Corrina Marie Swiggum