The Dream Come True Prom for about 90 developmentally disabled teens and adults was held at Castle Ridge over the weekend.
A smaller event was held once before at Kaskaskia College before COVID-19 and Coordinator Carrie Leigh Perkins-Schnicker was pleased to see it reappear. She says the idea for the Prom came from a friend with muscular dystrophy who did not feel comfortable going to her high school prom.
“Persons with disabilities get a free t-shirt and swag bag full of fun stuff. And a tiara or crown, everyone is crowned a queen or king. And they get a free 5×7 photo that they can take home with them so they can remember it.”
The DJ kept many residents on the dance floor throughout the night.
About 20 residents from Murray Developmental Center were in attendance along with Administrator Lori Demijan.
“They are just really excited to getting back into doing activities like dances because they love to come to them. We are having dances once a month at the center but this brings the whole community together. Their friends from the Workshop and other homes are here so it’s been fun for them to get their dresses and tuxes and been a really fun week for everyone.”
Two Murray resident, Joe and Loren, were excited about the evening.
“It was really good. It was a pretty good night. We had a good time, we went over and ate our supper over there and then came over here.”
The event ends a week of events at Castle Ridge according to Melissa Roach who says she was “over the moon” with the results.
“Part of what we do with the Castleridge Cares program is we started it with the Down Syndrome awareness day over at GSA on the 21st with Kaskaskia Workshop and ended it today with the prom. All week we have been doing something. We talked about doing prom again here next year so we will do some fundraising and host prom again next year. It’s something we hope can grow every year.”
Organizers were extremely pleased with how the community stepped up to help sponsor the various parts of the event, with over 50 businesses making donations.
