Kids with limb loss star in Limb Lind Foundation's "Show Your Shine" runway event

Posted

Hundreds of people gathered at the Paramount, in Huntington, which played host to the Limb Kind Foundation’s fifth annual Show Your Shine Adaptive Runway Show last Saturday.

The event is organized by Rockville Centre resident Jill Smith, an occupational therapist who founded Show Your Shine to raise funds to benefit the Limb Kind Foundation and celebrate those with limb loss.

Smith teams up each year with her brother, Oceanside resident Robert Schulman, the founder and executive director of Limb Kind, a nonprofit that was founded in Oceanside and is now headquartered in Ozone Park, Queens. Its mission, according to its website, is “improving the lives of children with limb loss, both domestic and international, by strengthening the amputee community and providing pediatric prosthetic care to all.”

“When I think about how Limb Kind began, it all comes back to belief,” Schulman said. “Seven years ago, this organization started as a simple dream of mine to help children around the world with limb loss. But dreams don’t grow in isolation. They need people who believe in them.”

Smith, the foundation’s domestic director, created the Show Your Shine event in 2020, to empower children with limb loss and to raise money for international missions. Over the past five years the event has grown, and now helps over 100 children and adults improve their confidence while raising funds.

“It’s absolutely incredible,” said attendee Nora Goldberg, an occupational therapist from Staten Island. “It’s beautiful to bring all these people together and look at what their accomplishments are, instead of what their disabilities are.”

The event’s models, who range in age from toddlers to adults, embrace their uniqueness as they inspire others. Show Your Shine has repeatedly been a sold-out success, drawing attention to the courage and resilience of young people with limb differences and limb loss and creating a supportive environment for them.

“This is a very big deal that we are doing,” Smith told the crowd of nearly 600. This here is not a one-person thing. I am convinced this is the most beautiful, selfless and promising movement that I have ever seen.”

The foundation’s mission is built on the belief in the potential of children, the power of kindness, and global change. It has expanded to provide free prosthetics in countries including Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Zambia, and plans to deliver nearly 200 prostheses this year.

“Every child who receives a prosthesis from us, every child in our youth group, and every child who walks this runway to Show Your Shine are reminded that we believe in them,” Schulman said. “We believe their futures are bright, full of possibility, and when they see that we believe in them, something even greater happens, they start believing in themselves. That is what makes this event so special.”

The event’s emcee, Nichole Grehn, a double amputee, shared her personal journey of overcoming adversity after a life-altering event left her without legs. She was a 24-year-old in Wisconsin when she collapsed at a gas station and suffered 78 cardiac arrests, which led to the amputation of both her legs above the knee. Grehn initially felt “hideous, useless, a burden,” she recounted, and wondered why she was still alive.

She later met others with limb loss and limb differences who were living confidently and sharing their stories. That inspired Grehn to go back to school while learning to walk again, and she became a nurse practitioner in the field of rehabilitation medicine.

“I wouldn’t even be here on this stage, let alone New York, if it wasn’t for Rob and Jill,” she said, referring to Schulman and Smith. “Through Limb Kind, I have found myself traveling the world and giving hope in places where they don’t have any. To be on this stage with models who take the runway and show you who they are beyond their disability is the greatest honor of my life, because I know how hard this is.”

Among the keynote speakers was Matias Ferreira, the first double amputee law enforcement patrolman in the country. Having served in the Marines and sustained injuries in 2011, Ferreira now serves as a Suffolk County police officer.

“It wasn’t easy, but with the support of my family and my friends, I’ve now been a police officer for almost nine years,” he said.

Another speaker, Bella Tucker, a quadruple amputee and a registered nurse, shared her journey of overcoming doubts to graduate from college and work at a rehabilitation hospital for amputees. She emphasized gratitude and the importance of communication.

“Many have doubted my abilities over the years, and I am well aware I will continue to encounter that doubt,” Tucker said, “but if there’s anything I would ever question, it’s that I was meant to be in this body and to have this loud voice,” she said. “These types of events remind me of how special that really is, and how awesome it can be that we get to live such a unique life and a really special one.