One morning in early February four years ago, junior Lauren Browning sat painting the faces of childhood cancer patients for Braden’s Hope.

“It was one of those mornings when it was not super fun to get up at five in the morning and go out in the cold and sit,” Browning said. “I wasn’t in a bad mood, but I wasn’t appreciating stuff as much as I should’ve been.”

A girl who was maybe three years old, bundled up in a tiny coat and attached to a breathing tube, walked over and sat on her mom’s lap. She asked Browning to paint something simple — Browning thinks it might have been a flower — and Browning said she sat trying not to cry as she painted the face of a little girl fighting for her life. That day was the girl’s last time in public. She passed away later that week.

“It just puts everything into perspective, and you realize how easy [your own life] is, but at the same time it was so cool to hold the mirror up to her and see a smile spread across her face,” Browning said. “It feels good to know that, if nothing else, I could give her one smile on her last week. That’s one of the moments when you realize it’s not so much about the painting, but more about the kids.”

As a nine-year-old, Browning began volunteering to paint faces at different events for Braden Hofen, a friend of the family. At one event that year, a father she had never met gave her $70. He asked her to buy paint with the money and turn it into something. She named her new project Faces of Hope after the organization Braden’s Hope that raises money for childhood cancer research.

“Faces of Hope’s motto is that whatever the kids can think of, we’ll try to paint, because the goal is for them to have that magical moment when they can sit down and they can be whatever they want and escape for a little bit,” Browning said.

That same year, Browning’s mom helped Faces of Hope become a registered nonprofit, which allows Browning to sign volunteer service forms, since she is officially the head of the organization. Since then she started attending events regularly — last year she painted over 3,000 faces. Faces of Hope has now grown so that seven or eight volunteers attend events all throughout each year — four or five people paint, one person runs water, one mans the glitter station and another answers questions about the organization.

Junior Rachel Lock from Blue Valley High is one of the painters. She became friends with Browning freshman year, and when she agreed to help face paint the year after, she loved it enough that she continued going back. While most people volunteer at one to five events each year, Lock attends around 20.

“Almost every time we paint together, I let Lauren paint my face however she wants,” Lock said. “She never lets me see what it looks like and I can’t sit still at all, which, of course, drives her crazy. [Faces of Hope] is a perfect fit for her because she uses her talent to make others happy and has such a passion about the cause.”

Not just anyone looking for service hours can paint with Faces of Hope — Browning makes sure that whoever is painting cares about creating the magic for the kids. Both senior Caleb Jenkins and junior Emilie Dayton understood the concept when she explained it to them, and she asked them to volunteer because “they treat the world with love and kindness, and that’s the vibe [she] would like Faces of Hope to have.” Last Sunday, Dayton and Jenkins volunteered for the first time at The Children’s Mercy Hospital Holiday Party.

“It was everything that I had expected, and more,” Jenkins said. “It was really cool to see the kids’ faces light up when the painter told them that we could paint literally anything they could think of. If Lauren asked me to do it again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Although the individual volunteers aren’t the same each time, Browning and a few of the regulars attend several annual and even monthly events, such as the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk or SOAR nights at Grace Church and the birthday or remission parties of the kids they meet.

“It stinks because you’re used to seeing the same kids at events over and over again, and then one year you don’t see them,” Browning said. “It’s really hard to get attached to the kids and then not see them again, but at the same time, it’s such an honor to have gotten to know them.”

Even though Browning plans to be out of state for college in two years, her painters will still continue to see the kids at the events. She is finding a sophomore and a middle schooler to continue painting at the events here, and she hopes to take a set of paints with her to college to “find a new avenue for Faces of Hope to grow,” so that even more kids will experience the magic of escaping and becoming anything they can imagine.

“My favorite moment is always when you hand them the mirror afterward,” Browning said.  “Even if I did a terrible job, the little kids are still so mesmerized afterward by their face not looking like their face. They smile, and I think the importance is in that moment. [When the kids know what they want painted] they have control over their own destiny, and they can make a decision to become whatever they want.”