Zoe the Clown with the Queen of Dreams
As the Queen of Dreams, I feel it is my MISSION to help people release their imprisoned dreams. But, instead of being the knight that actually busts Rapunzel out of the tower, I work to teach YOU to be the knight AND Rapunzel!
There’s nothing quite so intoxicating like knowing your MISSION and having a VISION of it, and being in ACTION with it! What’s the common theme in all of these words? Being ON!
I have always loved stories… I want to know everything about people – What’s your favorite color? What did you dream of doing when you were little? What’s your dream now?
This is the dream of a girl who has a MISSION to make little hearts happy.
What’s your mission? Send them to me at tina@rapidsuccesspartners.com. I’ll feature new missions each week!
A Clown Named Zoe
I am a caring clown named Zoe, whose mission in life is to make little hearts happy.
I’m often asked, “What made you want to be a clown?” Well, it goes back to my high school years when I decided that I wanted to bring joy and happiness to sick children. After graduation, I took my first clown class. It was a flop… the teacher hardly ever showed up and it was filled with kids taking a class for easy credit, after all they thought, how hard is being a clown? I dropped the course after 2 useless weeks and tucked away my dream of working with sick children for a very long time.
I’ve always known in my heart that I needed to work with children in need, be they sick, abused, homeless, or just those in need of a little sunshine in their young lives. Two years ago I decided it was finally time to take action.
In 2007, I hosted a hat drive for children with cancer and met some really amazing kids. They totally tugged at my heartstrings and I realized it was time to find a way to connect with these children more often. I felt they needed me and in a way, I really needed them. Around this time, I was at a children’s event and met a clown…oh my gosh, there was my sign! Bells, whistles, and fireworks went off in my head as old thoughts of wanting to be a clown came rushing back. This was it! This was how I was to achieve my dream of working with these children I so desperately wanted to help. I raced home to my computer and started looking up clown schools. The first one that popped up was Mooseburger Clown Camp in Minnesota…. MINNESOTA? Never been to Minnesota. It looked amazing, a summer camp for clowns. This was too cool! One week with 80 fellow clowns and Joey Clowns (Newbie’s), how fun was this going to be? So, with support from family and friends helping me realize that I wasn’t totally crazy, I decided to go for it. Camp was just a few months away and I couldn’t wait; what was this new adventure going to be like?
The first thing I had to do was figure out my clown name. I came up with “Zoe” because it is fun to say just makes me happy. Ok, now I was ready for camp. Finally, the day arrived and I packed up my excitement, my enthusiasm and my desire to be the best clown I could be, and headed to Minnesota for my introduction into this wonderful world of clowning. WOW! There aren’t words to describe my experience, The best week ever? Amazing? Beyond incredible? Spectacular? Simply said, it was the most magical week of my life. The teachers were “the best” and I learned everything from how to apply clown makeup, to clown movement, to costuming, to how to be a great hospital clown and more. I also made some incredible new lifelong clown friends.
I’ve been lucky enough in the past two years to work with some great charities that help children in need and “Zoe” is a proud member of the Humorology Clown Troop at Medical Center of Plano and really enjoys visiting patients. Right now I am looking for more opportunities to work with children in a group setting, to bring much needed smiles to their little faces.
Clowning has brought more joy than I could have ever dreamed into my life. When I put on that big red nose and my big shoes, I am transported into a magical world of play, and when I make that wonderful connection with a child who needs a bit of “happy” in their day, it makes me know that I am on the right path with my life. One day I was at an event and a little girl about 7 years old came up to me and said, “Clown, you’re the best clown I ever met. Do you know what good you are doing?” Need I say more?
Last summer I got back from my second amazing year at Mooseburger Camp. Once again, I came home filled with tons of new information, new skills, new clown friends and bursting with happy from the awesome experience. Guess what? July is right around the corner and I’m countin’ down the day’s until I get to go to “to Mooseburger Camp” again, this is something special that I do each year for “me and for Zoe” and the anticipation and excitement about seeing friends, learning all the wonderful things I’ll learn and coming home an even better clown keeps me smiling!
Zoe comes out to play just a couple of times a month. Perhaps one day she will play more often, but for now I’m so incredibly grateful for this journey. Just knowing that when I take off my big red nose at the end of a “play date”, that I’ve made a difference in a young life, well…It doesn’t get better than that.
How People Find Us.
- clown zoe
[...] blogged about Zoe the Clown a couple of years ago. Today, I’m sharing some celebratory updates to her ‘mission’ playing [...]