CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – A Clay County nurse is organizing a big trip to the “Happiest Place on Earth”-- Disney World.
She is inviting nurses from around the world to join her to celebrate National and International Nurses Day on May 6th and May 7.
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April Freeman is putting the event together.
She is a registered nurse at Ascension St. Vincent’s Clay County Hospital and has been in the industry for 25 years.
Freeman started this in May 2025. More than 750 nurses showed up for what was a one-day trip to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.
This year, the event will be two days.
On May 6, the nurses who show up will spend the day at Magic Kingdom. Then on May 7, they will hang out at EPCOT.
“I collect Nurses Day pins from Disney,” Freeman said. “They have been releasing a Nurses Day pin for the last 25 or 26 years and I started collecting that. I have one for every year that I have been a nurse.”
She explained how she came up with this in the first place.
“How cool would it be if I dressed up like an old-fashioned nurse-- with my white dress and my white hat and I go to Disney on Nurses Day as a nurse,?” Freeman said she joked with her husband at the time. “Then I said, ‘I wonder if anybody else would want to go with me?’ I went on a Disney passholder page and I said, ‘Hey here’s my idea who wants to go?’ It exploded.”
When Freeman saw the turnout, she was overwhelmed as all she wants is for nurses to be valued and appreciated.
“I cried,” Freeman said. “It was so emotional to me that nurses had come together in such a big number simply to enjoy each other’s company and to enjoy that day.”
If you would like to attend this year, you are asked to join the group on Facebook called “Best Nurses Day Ever.”
The only requirement is you will have to purchase your own admission ticket into the theme park.
Freeman said she plans to add schedules for each day and some of the activities lined up.
“I think it is really hard when you are caring for people to believe that you are doing a good job or that you have done enough,” Freeman said. “I think that when you hear stories like that of people appreciating you or telling you what a wonderful job a nurse did or how they impacted, it made nurses feel seen and appreciated.”
Freeman says 3,200 nurses have joined that Facebook Group.
She is expecting at least 1,500 of them to show up for the two-day event in May, including from England and Puerto Rico.