Senior citizen prom held outdoors to socially-distance guests

RAPID CITY, S.D. — Two Rapid City area high school seniors helped organize a prom for the senior citizens of the Minneluzahan Senior Citizen Center. There was food and drink as well as live music and dancing – everything a high school prom would have – including a gazebo for photo opportunities.

After last years senior citizen prom was cancelled last minute the day before the event, the students made sure this years event took place no matter what.

Hannah Churchill, one of the event organizers, said, “We’ve been a part of the senior citizen prom for three years now I think. So we’ve kind of been ready to do it again after last year with that it got canceled, which was really sad.”

They held the event outdoors to comply with the CDC guidelines to make sure the event was safe but also fun.

Grace Dodd, the other event organizer, said, “It’s great to have it this year, especially with COVID. People were really sad that it was cancelled last year again, since it was such a last-minute thing too. Nobody was expecting it and so this year we’ve been trying really hard to keep CDC guidelines and recommendations, trying to make it a little safe so we can still have this.”

This is sixth annual Senior Prom. The event usually takes place indoors, but due to the pandemic, the event was held outside. Organizers of the event thought it was only right that the theme be ‘Garden Party’.

“Since we wanted to be a little safer, we thought maybe an outside party would be better. And so we had our planning committee meet with us and we were like discussing what could we do outside that like makes sense you know? And we were like what if we had a garden party? Like flowers and its springtime…its really gorgeous today, so we’re just super glad about that,” Dodd said.

This years organizers are high school seniors and they hope younger students will take over and keep the tradition alive.