Anniversary Open House

The Exciting Moments of Peace between the Rebels and Empire

by: Tiernan

photo courtesy Kcjohnson

As Rebels of the Great Lakes Base, we find ourselves working with the 501st Great Lakes Garrison more often than not.  Occasionally, you will find an event, which is either a Garrison ONLY or Base ONLY invitation; but usually bad guys and good guys are both sought out to attend the troop in hopes of raising money for different charity organizations.  The Anniversary Open House/Ribbon Cutting at Tasco Family Chiropractic was just such an event.  Celebrating the opening of his new office, Dr. Tasco hosted an open house and fundraiser for Love Has No Color -- an organization aimed to help Native American children struggling with poverty, drug addiction and suicide.

The day's mission was to take pictures with the guest at the open house and try to attract a few people over to the Chiropractic office from The Rochester Farmers Market.  Once suited and changed, Base and Garrison members made way to the reception area where visitors and staff alike were already lined up to have their photos taken.  After the first few minutes into the troop already taking pictures, we were asked to make an appearance at the market, in hopes that those shopping and running booths would seek to have their pictures taken at the office and donate to Love Has No Color.  While a few came over after their visit to the market, other guest were there supporting Dr. Tasco's open house.

One round at the Farmer's Market and already more people were arriving to celebrate the opening of the new chiropractic office.  Having seen that there were Star Wars characters, people got excited wanting to talk to us and have their pictures taken.  As we all know, adults really love Star Wars and love to see us dressed up and in costume -- often times making comments such as, "you look like you just stepped out of the movies!"

It's not every day that we are able to keep the attention of children for four straight hours and their excitement never dwindling.  With younglings, it's often expected of them to grab at armor, hit sometimes or even try to take off a trooper's helmet along with a few other problems that might arise.  With all their energy and excitement, running around, these younglings never got out of hand with the agreement of myself and the other three costumers, they were even lot of fun to interacted with, spending at least 3 of the 4 hours there talking and entertaining them between photos.  When time to go, everyone there gave their thanks and appreciation to us with hopes of coming back the next year.  But it was the young children who tried getting us to stay and were sad by our departure.

From taking photographs, a raffle and hot dog sales, Tasco Family Chiropractic raised $180 dollars that will go to Fort Peck Reservation, located in Montana, to help the youth there reconnect with the elders of their tribe and tribal traditions and culture as well as turning them away from drugs and alcohol. 

A New (Wellspring of) Hope

photo courtesy Lisa Lang White

As some of you may have noticed, it’s been a few weeks since I have “suit up” for an event since Motor City Comic Con.  Not that this year’s convention was any more stressful then in past years, just that sometimes you need to just “power down” and take some time to relax and recharge the batteries, as it were.  In my case, my sister and I went down to Walt Disney World for the finale of Star Wars Weekends – I even got picked as the “Rebel Spy” during our last run on Star Tours; a point of pride for us Rebels.  So when mauiview -- who also just got back from Disney -- came to the Great Lakes Base with an event request from a group called Wellspring Community Church of God, inviting us to be part of their annual summer block party… felt like a good way to get back to work.

It was a beautiful summer morning at Oak Knoll Park!  Perfect weather for Wellspring Community Church of God to welcome people from the neighborhood to come together and enjoy some food, fun and games -- but also help provide donated food and clothing to those who may need it.  I used to work with faith-based groups like this all the time, during my tour as an Americorps service volunteer, and what these people manage to do (for others) is truly inspiring.  According to the Wellspring’s pastor, the event drew 250-300 people -- which is a very high turnout for a group like this.

For our part in all this, the mission was simple: just be there and have fun!  At first some of the kids didn’t know who or what we were, other kids recognized us (or maybe our LEGO counterparts, to be exact) right away, then some of them got brave enough to come up to the life-sized action figures and have their parents ask if we’d be willing to take pictures with their kids…

“That’s why I’m here!” (Obi-Wan)

One of my favorite moments of the day came when this one particularly shy kid’s mom asked mauiview for a side-profile picture on her camera.  A little while later, they returned and the kid was wearing one of visor caps from over in the crafts area -- with the image of mauiview’s “Captain Keeli” drawn on the visor, by one of the face-painters.  It looked really good!

Wellspring Community Church of God’s motto is: "Come thirsty, leave fulfilled" and while their summer block party may have been smaller then the typical types of events we volunteer our time with... they also happen to be exactly the type of “break” we need to recharge our batteries for the volunteerism and service aspects of what groups like The Rebel Legion are all about.

Columbus Clippers

by: Cordaroyfog

Over Memorial Day Weekend, Great Lakes Base, Ohio Garrison, and Rancor Clan spent a night at Huntington Ballpark. The Columbus Clippers hosted their second annual "Star Wars Night" -- which drew a season high 11,448 in attendance, for a fun-filled night with jedi, sith, and fireworks!  Making up for last year when Darth Vader intervened, the jedi threw out the first pitch; which got to home plate, on only one bounce.

photo courtesy: Zac Taylor

Throughout the game various jedi, sith, bounty hunters, and more took hundreds of photos with fans, many dressed up themselves as classic characters.  In between the innings, we all participated in many different activities on the field:  a couple of jedi tossed out swag from atop the dugouts, some helped judge the fan costume contest, and others supervised the legendary hotdog race.

The game went into extra innings but everyone stayed for the big fireworks finale.  Although the Clippers ended up losing 2-1 in ten innings, when the lights were shut the real party started.  Throughout the game, the Clippers had sold thousands of toy lightsabers to fans.  Later, as Huntington Park fell into darkness, the lightsabers were ignited in a scene straight out of the Geonosian arena from “Episode II: Attack of the Clones.”

After some friendly -- yet spirited -- lightsaber dueling in the dark, the fireworks died away and the evening came to a close.  The Clippers were gracious hosts, who provided food and water and excellent scheduling and support.  There have already been preliminary talks to expand the event next year, and more then a few fans inquired if we would be back, and when.