Children’s Hospital of Michigan is carrying on the legacy of one very special patient.
McKenna Schummer inspired and touched so many people in her short 11-year life, always putting others first. Now her bravery, generosity, and love for makeup live on at the hospital through McKenna’s Beauty Bar.
“She found her passion going through the most extraordinary difficult days ever, I don’t even know how she did it,” McKenna’s Mom Melissa Schummer said. “She did it with the most gracious smile.”
With an infectious smile and perfectly blended eyeshadow, McKenna found strength during her 2 year battle with bone cancer in eyeliner, blush and false lashes.
“She went through chemo, she lost her hair a couple of times, she went through radiation, she went through a couple surgeries,” Melissa said. “We were in the hospital for quite a while but she turned to makeup, she said she found her courage.”
McKenna’s hospital room? Always open if you’re ready for a makeover. Doctors and nurses would bring their makeup in for tips and tricks from the 11-year-old glamazon whose fans and supporters dubbed themselves the ‘McKenna Squad.’
“Mckenna would go through their makeup, she did their makeup, she made a sign and put it on her hospital door and said McKenna’s makeup sessions,” Melissa said.
And McKenna was on a mission to share that joy she found in beauty products with other children battling a disease so ugly. That’s when she came up with the idea of McKenna’s Beauty Bar.
“We found a room, we helped her create her vision,” Luanne Thomas Ewald, CEO of Children’s Hospital of Michigan said.
The team at Children’s Hospital of Michigan worked with McKenna creating her dream getaway spot.
“Children will come into McKenna's Beauty Bar and you see they’re not feeling well, you see they’re struggling and the second they walk into that beauty bar they’re smiling and they feel beautiful,” Thomas Ewald said.
Like 9-year-old Katie Fell who is in the fight for her life.
“This space was meant for you to find your courage, your strength and beauty and it’s signed by Kenna,” Melissa read the sign on the wall of McKenna’s Beauty Bar.
They’re McKenna's words of inspiration, read by Melissa, because in March just months before her beauty bar opened McKenna lost her courageous fight.
“I can hear her voice in there, I can feel her in there and I could probably sit in there for a while,” Melissa said. “Just looking around and feeling very proud, this is what she wanted.”
Melissa and The McKenna Squad now plan to open more of McKenna’s Beauty Bars at children’s hospitals across Michigan.
“It’s very bittersweet for me, I wish she was here, I wish she was able to see it and that’s so hard for me but yet when I see the smiles on these little kids faces, it does it brings us so much happiness and it brings us a peace that this is her legacy this is what she wanted to do,” Melissa said.
Grieving her daughter and now passing on the legacy of her beautiful life.
You can join the McKenna Squad bydonating to the beauty bar, they’re also looking for a makeup partner to fill those drawers for the young girls battling cancer.
Popular items you can donate include handheld shatterproof mirrors so patients can apply makeup in their rooms when they are too sick to spend time in McKenna’s Beauty Bar, false lashes, brow kits, makeup wipes and brushes. Items can be dropped off at Children’s Hospital of Michigan 3901 Beaubien Boulevard, Detroit, MI 48201. You can call to set up a drop off time at (313) 966-5288.
