Students step up, take charge
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Senior prom is one of the most cherished memories of high school.
For a time earlier this year, Glendale High School students in Tillsonburg thought it might be an event they could miss due to teachers’ ongoing work to rule campaign.
That’s when Grade 12 students at Glendale decided to take matters into their own hands, to ensure they would have a senior prom.
“We’re doing our own prom this year, outside of school at the Tillsonburg Soccer Club,” said Hannah Marshall, co-chair of the Glendale prom committee. “Because when the teachers’ (job action) was on, we couldn’t actually have a prom in the school so we decided to take it out on our own grounds, and then when it was over, we were able to bring it back to the school, but we took a vote and decided to keep it off property.”
Over the past few months senior students at Glendale have been busy organizing this year’s prom, a special night with an ‘enchanted forest’ theme. Preparations have included a number of prom-related items, including fundraising events.
“We have weekly meetings, we’ve been looking at different decorations and food, so we’ve been planning a lot,” said Marshall. “We’ve had a bottle drive and we have a car wash coming up.”
The car wash fundraising event is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, May 11, with time and location to be confirmed.
The prom committee has a fundraising goal they hope to reach to help cover costs.
“So far we’ve fundraised around $650 with the bottle drive and we’re still doing a car wash,” said co-chair Paula Gilvesy. “I think we are hoping to raise just over $500 from that (car wash), and get a total of around $1,200.”
In addition, there are anticipated sales from prom tickets at $40 each.
“We don’t have our final numbers yet, but we’re hoping for 150 to 170 students,” said Marshall.
“We just want to say thank you to everyone in the community who helped us raise the money we did with the bottle drive, it was much appreciated and we’re really grateful for all the help we got,” said Marshall.
“And with the committee we have one of the best group of people helping us. We’re all so committed to it and parents have been great with it too.”
Marshall noted why students chose to go ahead with their senior prom at the Tillsonburg Soccer Club.
“We did the vote because we had already done so much on our own and we wanted to stick with it and finish it - it seemed like such a waste after all the hard work we had put into it.”
Gilvesy said that the Glendale senior prom, taking place on Friday, May 31, will be a fun-filled, memorable night for everyone.
“We’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be a lot of work but it’s really going to be worth it in the end,” said Gilvesy. “It’s like the last get together we have as a group of people before we all go off in our different ways, so it’s really important that we have one.”