Christian Baseball Player Tim Tebow Hosts Proms, Crowns Special-Needs Kings and Queens

(Getty Images | Larry Busacca)

Newlyweds Tim Tebow and former Miss America Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters are celebrating the Tim Tebow Foundation’s 6th annual “Night to Shine” prom for teens and young adults with special needs, and 2020 looks set to welcome the biggest turnout to date.

The Christian athlete’s foundation expects to welcome 115,000 attendees to the worldwide, faith-based Night to Shine event on Feb. 7, 2020—5,000 more than in 2019. The 6th annual prom night comes just weeks after Tim and Nel-Peters’s romantic honeymoon in the Maldives.

“[W]e have decided to go out of our way to make the biggest, the most special night of the year for people with special needs,” Tebow explained to Fox News, “because they’re worth it and they’re special.”

Tebow, 32, and Nel-Peters, 24, first met at a Night to Shine prom in South Africa in 2018, as per the Daily Mail. Nel-Peters’s sister, Franje, was born with special needs; she was in attendance at the party where Tebow and his future wife met. Franje sadly passed away in May 2019.

The Tebows’ Night to Shine prom comprises a bonafide “red carpet welcome” for all guests, hair and makeup, shoe-shining, a catered dinner, games, dancing, and even karaoke. At the apex of the party, every guest is truly treated like royalty by being crowned king or queen of the prom.

The event is a worldwide affair.

Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters and Tim Tebow attend the Party at the Playoff at The GlassHouse in San José, California, on Jan. 5, 2019. (©Getty Images | Steve Jennings)

The first prom of 2020’s Night to Shine season was held in Albania on Feb. 3, 2020, and the newlyweds were in attendance to kick things off. The worldwide event will happen on Feb. 7, 2020, one week before Valentine’s Day, when hundreds of proms will take place simultaneously in venues around the world.

The Tim Tebow Foundation took to Facebook to celebrate the success of Albania’s inaugural prom. “So grateful to celebrate the honored guests at ICF Tirana in Albania!” they wrote. “720 more Night to Shines to come, and thousands of guests to crown King or Queen!”

Sylvia Washington, chief operating officer at New Mexico-based non-profit Tresco Inc., explained that the non-profit would be hosting Las Cruces’s very first Night to Shine prom on Feb. 7 in collaboration with Calvary Baptist Church.

“The [Tim Tebow] foundation has the idea that everybody matters and that everyone should be included,” Washington told Las Cruces Sun News, “so it’s a sense of inclusion. It’s a day for them to get what they want and to get their hair and makeup done, things that everybody wants for prom.”

Tebow told Fox News that he believes Night to Shine is “a catalyst” for valuing and honoring the special-needs community all around the world.

“We want to have masses of humanity celebrating them, because that doesn’t happen a lot,” Tebow said. “But on February 7 of this year [2020], it’s going to happen with over 200,000 volunteers in over 30 countries.”

Many supporters took to Facebook to share their support for Tebow’s initiative. “Night to Shine is amazing,” wrote one person. “If your church sponsors one, get involved in celebrating those with special needs.”

“This is truly a way to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” wrote another.

With the help of family, friends, local communities, and the 720 churches that have pledged to host a Night to Shine event in 2020, more people than ever will have the opportunity to celebrate people with special needs.

“When you know it’s all worth it,” Tebow posted on Facebook on Feb. 4, beside a sweet photo of himself hugging a newly crowned prom queen tightly. “A smile that changes everything.”