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.