An American Girl Legacy

EVENT INSPIRES CONVERSATION, PARTICIPATION

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The three best results of hosting an American Girl Fashion Show can be seen long after the Arts Center of the Ozarks staff members lock the doors and go home.

Michelle Cook, chairwoman for this year’s event - which takes place Saturday and Sunday - knows about all three of them fi rsthand.

After one of the fashion showsattended by her girls - Anna, now 15, and Ashley, 10 - they were eager to call Cook’s grandmother to ask her “Granny, was it really like that?”

“Seeing the show enables conversations about history in a friendly environment,” said Cook, who especially enjoys overhearing the chats that take place at the tea party immediately following the fashion show. “It’s a time for them to sit down with their parents or grandparents and really talk.”

That family connection continuesas grandmothers, moms and daughters shop for and collect new American Girl dolls, books and movies, added Nikki Sievert, who has been directing the fashion show at ACO since the first one in 2008.

“I found my first American Girl book at the library in 1987 and saved up my money for a doll,” she said. “That was back when there were only three girls and only three outfits for each! Needless to say, I have held a special place in myheart for American Girl for a long time.

“I had the great joy of being able to go to an American Girl store for the fi rst time a couple of months ago,” she added. “I had my 3-year-old daughter, Clark, look at all the Bitty Babies and choose one she thought Santa should bring to her. She was a little confused because there wasn’t any snow outside and thus not Christmas time, but she picked out which one she liked. So this year, after the show, Santa will be buying a special Christmas present for Clark.”

Sievert said that although Clark is still too young to be part of an American Girl show, “I will probably have her watch next year andthen hopefully she will be the right size to participate the next year. I am very much looking forward to the day that she can.”

The second payoft of the show is introducing families to the arts center itself.

“I grew up at the Arts Center,” Cook remembered. “I can still picture walking down the aisle to sit down” an an outdoor production of “Annie.”

Through American Girl, she was able to inspire that involvement for her daughters, who have since appeared in “The B est Christmas Pageant Ever” and taken arts classes - and Anna just completed a role in “Cinderella.”

“I think American Girl gives people a chance to see the arts center oft ers so much more than they realize,” Cook said. “This fun event sparks so much interest! So many people end up trying classes or ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.’”

For Sievert, the involvement runs so deep that it brings her back from Montana every year to direct the show.

“I come back because of my love of the ACO; they are my theater family,” she said. “When I return to sit in the office and walk on that stage and run around backstage, I feel whole again. It keeps me going for another year.”

Last but not least, the money raised by the American Girl Fashion Show -the only one sanctioned by the company in Arkansas - “goes right back to bringing in more kids,” Cook said. “It’s kind of a great circle of opportunities.”

Life, Pages 6 on 10/02/2013