National Pancake Day at IHOP!

Hello all!

As you may have heard, yesterday was National Pancake Day! Anyone who stopped by IHOP received a free stack of pancakes for a free will donation to the Children's Miracle Network. This event is always a lot of fun, and it is always so wonderful to speak with people who have been directly involved with the Children's Miracle Network! I spent the evening greeting people and serving the free pancakes, it was a wonderful experience, and from what I could tell, it was a huge success! The Children's Miracle Network had set a goal this year to raise 2.7 million dollars, and I believe it was achieved! A special thanks to IHOP for allowing such a wonderful event to take place in their restaurant!

Here I am with some of the IHOP workers, they are troopers for working on National Pancake Day! The event brings a lot of people to IHOP in a short period of time and it can be stressful! We all had a great time serving the pancakes, though!

I had the great privilege of meeting multiple families that have worked directly with the Children's Miracle Network, it is always inspiring to hear the stories of children overcoming sicknesses and also hearing the family's love and support for CMN!

Here are some of the hard-working cooks at IHOP! They had a big job yesterday with all of the free pancakes that needed to be made but they still had time to pose for a picture!

This is Rain, she was so excited to get her free pancakes, and to meet the "Yellow Princess" :)

Here is the donation box for people to leave free-will donations for the Children's Miracle Network! We raised over 2.5 million dollars yesterday alone, great work!

This was my job for the majority of the night, serving pancakes! I burnt my arm one of the times, accidentally grabbing the bottom of the plate, I guess I know why I'm not a server!

Here I am with Miss Omaha, Mindy Schreiber! These are the donation slips that people filled out while making contributions to CMN!

It was so great to meet this little girl, and she was really excited to eat some free pancakes! She didn't know the occasion for the free pancakes, so I chatted with her and her mother for a while explaining CMN and the Children's Hospital, and by the end of the conversation they were so happy to be able to support such a great cause!

Local and state title holders all over the country (as well as Miss America, Laura Kaeppeler) worked so hard yesterday to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network, and with an end result of over 2.5 million dollars raised, I think it is safe to say it was a success! It is always an honor to represent both the Miss America Organization and the Children's Miracle Network!

March is going to be a pretty crazy month in the life of Miss Lincoln. I have 4 appearances, 3 baton competitions, a philanthropy event for my sorority (Gamma Phi Beta French Toast Feed), orientation for Miss Nebraska, and at the very end of the month, I will be off to Switzerland for the World Baton Twirling Championships! With all of this, plus staying very busy with preparations for Miss Nebraska, March will be a very fun, busy, and exciting month!

Until next time!

Rachel Foehlinger

Miss Lincoln 

Inspirational Video of the Day:

Children's Miracle Network!

Hello everyone!

Today I had the opportunity to volunteer at an event for the Children's Miracle Network! The more time I spend with people from the Children's Hospital in Omaha, or people who work directly for the Children's Miracle Network, I find myself more inspired by the amazing things that these companies do for children all over the nation. I am so proud that Omaha's very own Children's Hospital helped over 16,000 children last year, suffering from all kinds of different sicknesses.

Today's event was a very special one. It was a Radio-a-Thon at the KX96 studio in Lincoln. I volunteered my time answering phones and taking donations. These donations go directly to medical supplies for the children at the hospital in Omaha. It was very inspiring to see so many people willing to pledge to give monthly donations to such an amazing cause.

With two of the other volunteers at the Radio-a-Thon

These signs helped guide the way to the Radio-a-Thon!

With one of the families. The kids, Mason and Lanie, were very excited to be on the radio!

With the radio talk show hosts for the event!

Again with Rob from KX96.

I was so happy to be able to volunteer at such a great event and I look forward to upcoming events with the Children's Miracle Network this spring! It is such an inspiring company and I know they will continue to save lives and make children very happy for a very long time. 

Tomorrow morning I will be flying by myself for the first time (my mom is already in Florida). I am off to "Twirl Mania" which is a really fun baton twirling competition in Orlando. The preliminary events are held at Disney's Wide World of Sports, and the finals for the Collegiate Championships are at Epcot! I look forward to an exciting, warm, magical trip!

Until next time!

Rachel

A Colorado Adventure!

Hello everyone!

I have something extra special to share this time! Taking a trip out to Colorado has turned out to be an even more fun and rewarding trip than planned! I had the opportunity to volunteer at a great event last night with Miss Colorado, and today I had the amazing opportunity to visit the Lincoln Meadows Assisted Living Center! I have met so many amazing people on this two-day journey and I want to share the pictures!

Miss Colorado and I! 

The Beach Ball was a blast!

With my parents..

With my brother-in-law Christian!

Some of the kids, they were so much fun!

My performance...

Sisters!

The kids were all so great!

My biggest fans!

Today, I had the opportunity to visit the Lincoln Meadows Assisted Living Center (They loved that i was Miss LINCOLN!) :)

This is the piano player at the Assisted Living center, he played "There She is, Miss America" as I walked in! It was so great!

As I said before, this trip has turned out to be even better than I had planned! I am excited to eat dinner with family tonight and head home tomorrow! I have more events coming up in the next few weeks and I look forward to my next trip, Florida!! I will be in Florida for a collegiate twirling competition Friday-Monday of the coming week!

Until next time!

Rachel

Miss Lincoln

Avery Vasa Fundraiser

Hello all! 


I want to share with you some photos and stories from my most recent appearance. On Friday night, I had the opportunity to join Kim Brennan (Miss Heartland) and volunteer at a wonderful event at the Starlight Ballroom in Wahoo, NE. The event was held as a fundraiser for a very special little girl, Avery. 

Her Story:

"On April 12, 2011, the Vasa Family joyously celebrated the birth of their daughter Avery Noelle. Avery’s parents, Jake and Tiffany (Warholoski) and brother Peyton (4 years old) were thrilled to finally hold their baby girl!

Shortly after her birth the doctors shared heartbreaking news that Avery could not hear. Avery attends appointments with specialists at Boystown Research Hospital as well as Children’s hospital where they take a mold of her ear to produce hearing aids. What a miracle moment when they placed the first hearing aid in Avery’s ear and she made a noise and smiled. Avery also attends specialty appointments in Omaha on a weekly basis. A portion of all appointments and necessities, such as ear molds, are not covered by insurance.

Avery will receive bilateral cochlear implants in April 2012, which is approximately $100,000 for each ear. At this time, insurance will not cover this expense.

On September 14, 2011, the Vasa’s learned that Avery has macular scarring on her left eye with a good possibility that this will result in blindness in her left eye.

We are reaching out to our friends, family and others who may not even know the Vasa’s to help us soften the financial burden the Vasa’s have encountered and will continue to struggle with as Avery meets with doctor’s and has procedures to improve her quality of life.

We hope you will join us at this event and share your love and support with the Vasa Family."

Kim and I were asked to come volunteer at the event. We greeted people as they arrived, cleaned off empty plates, trays, and cups when people were finished with their meals, got up on stage to dance with Elvis, and had time to talk to the family about Avery and her future. It was a wonderful experience for both Kim and I.

Upon entering the event, there was a set-up that showed both a picture of Avery, and an explanation of the surgery she is going to have done.

Avery was such a cute little girl, I can't wait until she can hear!

Kim and I with Tiffany, Avery's mom.

Both the live and silent auction were filled with wonderful prizes! It is so great to see so many generous auction donors for an event like this!

Kim and I got to meet The King! The event had an Elvis impersonator who ended up pulling us up on stage to dance with him! It was so much fun!

There were also clowns at the event making really fun balloon animals (among other things) for the kids, so we stopped for a picture! (Kim and I got turtles!)

The event was a blast for everyone who attended, which was a lot of people! I was so happy to see the support from Avery's family, friends, and those who attended who may not even know Avery or the family. I look forward to hearing how Avery's surgery goes and hopefully meeting her again someday. 

Until next time,

Rachel

Miss Lincoln