My grand daughter participated in pageants for several years. She has a lot of great memories from doing pageants. It was important for us that Maddie not feel pressure and have fun doing pageants. There are many different pageant programs to choose from and we learned that some do a better job of encouraging girls to be themselves and to be good stewards of their communities. The Miss Heart of the USA Pageant is one that encourages these things. I realize there are people who view pageants in a negative light, but from experience I can say it has been a great confidence builder for Maddie. You just have to be choosy about which pageants you participate in.
The Miss Heart of the USA Pageant strives to provide ladies of all ages with the opportunity to have fun, establish lasting friendships, build confidence, and self esteem; all while encouraging them to get involved with organizations in their community, that benefit those in need.
Miss Heart of the USA Queens are involved at the local level with many organizations like the humane society, the March of Dimes, Children’s Hospitals, etc.
The pageant began as a food drive for a local Rescue Mission and blossomed into a National Pageant Program that has distributed over 750,000 non perishable food items to non profit organizations, collected toys for Toys for Tots and even assisted a Women’s Hope Center by collecting much needed baby items to be distributed to mothers in need.
So what makes this pageant so different? When Ciera Nitkowski began this program she wanted to teach the contestants and future queens the importance of giving back to their community. She wanted to do something that at the end of the day, the girls could look around a room and see the impact they had made. The very first pageant collected over 3,500 non perishable food items.
In 2010 their program sponsored the Miss Pink Pageant and raised over $3,000 for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides event. In Christmas of 2011 a pageant was held for Sand Hills Santa and over 850 toys were collected to be distributed to hospitalized children all over North Florida.
The Miss Heart of the USA Pageant currently holds State Pageants in:
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
Mississippi
Louisiana
South Carolina
Texas
Illinois
Massachusetts
The Miss Heart of the USA National Pageant will be held on November 17th, 2012 at the International Palms Resort in Orlando, Florida. Each year, Miss Heart of the USA awards a $5,000 Scholarship at Nationals. Winner from each state pageant will advance to Nationals with their entry fee paid where they will represent their state. If you live in a state that does not currently have a state pageant, you can register at large to represent your state. You will receive a rhinestone crown, monogrammed sash, rhinestone sash pin and referral cards and can immediately begin representing your state as a Miss Heart of the USA Queen. We have a division for all ages!
Baby Miss (Ages 0-23 months)
Tiny Miss (Ages 2-4 years)
Little Miss (Ages 5-7)
Petite Miss (Ages 8-10)
Junior Miss (Ages 11-13)
Teen Miss (Ages 14-16)
Miss (Ages 17-23)
Ms (ages 24 and up)
For more information visit www.missheartoftheusa.com or become a fan on Facebook.
What kind of experience have you had with Pageants?
The girls are so adorable. My friend has grand daughters who are in pageants all the time too. But none of them that I know of do this sort of thing . I think this is really good that they do this. Lets them know that they should think of other people less fortunate then them.