By Tanisha Naik
The moment when the first FOCUS kid walks through the door of Prom, something magical happens. Nervous glances turn into smiles. Hesitant feet start moving to the beat. Within minutes, everyone is dancing to the music.
“It’s almost immediate that people start to feel welcome and excited,” Rev Brown told me, echoing thoughts he shared at a recent chapel.
Every year, the SSB Community Service section transforms the MPR into a space of pure joy for the FOCUS Prom. This special evening provides children with physical and mental disabilities from the FOCUS organization with a prom night of their own. They can eat snacks, dance, and have a really great time.
This was Rev Brown’s second year of going to FOCUS Prom. “It’s absolutely incredible because our Lovett kids are super excited setting up and they love making it really special,” he said.
When the FOCUS kids start showing up, some are ready to go. Other can be a little nervous, but that nervousness does not last long. The energy in the room and the welcome from the volunteers help to transform their nervousness into excitement.
A great deal of planning goes into a night of this scale. This year’s Community Outreach Committee, led by Seniors Megan Frisch, Ava Boren, and Shelby Morris alongside Juniors Fannie Bradley, Sonia Kukrega, and Modupe Askedo, did everything from selecting this year’s vibrant Hawaiian theme to helping to reach out to other SSB members to collect more volunteers. Their goal was to ensure every detail was perfect.
I spoke with Senior Isabelle Cheroff, who gave me more insight into the night.
The transformation of the MPR began an hour before doors opened, and all of the “members and volunteers help set up all the decorations and just get everything organized and together before the kids show up,” she said.
She said they had many volunteers. It was “probably one of the best turnouts in years, everyone was really engaged, and it was just great,” she said.
One of her favorite memories from this year is when the song “Cotton Eye Joe” came on and everyone headed to the dance floor. “Everyone just started to do the dance together,” she said.
From helping plan this event, Isabelle learned that you have to do a lot in advance. “You have to find everything about a month or two in advance, and you’ve got to just keep up communication with people, or else nothing’s going to be done,” she said.
For Shelby, she really enjoyed getting to dance with all the kids and “building relationships, both with the kids and both with the people from focus, but also kids from other grades who I know very well.”
Her favorite memory was putting up the decorations and “thinking about how things would go.”
As for Rev Brown’s favorite part? “I really think it’s the best thing that Lovett does,” he said.
