GHS News

Fifties Dance Brings Awareness to Down Syndrome

Reporter Celeste Barber

March 25, 2019

At Gloucester High, every senior has a senior project known as their Senior Independent Research Study, or SIRS for short.

On Friday, March 22, 2019, Kaitlyn Chaffin took her SIRS project into action.

Kaitlyn helps out in the Life Skills class at the high school. The kids in that class are what inspired her to do the Sock Hop in the first place.

Every year Gloucester has a homecoming dance at the beginning of the school year, unfortunately the special ed class was prevented from going to the dance. Chaffin said, “they needed a chaperone and there wasn’t anyone to take it”. So as a result, she wanted to give them an event that was catered to them.

Chaffin got the idea of a “sock hop” from a Netflix show called Switched At Birth. The show did an episode based on national down syndrome awareness day, and they did a “rock your socks off”. She ended up doing a sock hop, but included the theme of “It’s okay to be different, like your socks”. All the proceeds that were made from the event were donated to the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.

Chaffin’'s goal was “to have an environment where the kids can come and have fun but be safe at the same time and to have a quiet area to cool down in and their families were welcome so they felt more comfortable”.

Chaffin said her favorite part was “seeing everyone interacting and having fun together”.

A little over one hundred people attended, including a family that drove all the way from Smithfield. Later after the dance, Chaffin received an email from the family thanking her for hosting the event. The family has a 22 year-old daughter who “doesn't have any activities she can participate in with people her age who have her condition”. They said that she had a lot of fun.

Junior Savannah Rose also attended the event and said, “it was so amazing and [she] was glad to spend time with such amazing people and give back to all the amazing kids that were there”.

Many enjoyed the dance; Katherine Irish said her favorite part was when she got the chance to dance with former student, Anthony. Kalyn Ward said her favorite part was the pizza, but further confessed to enjoying the Justin Bieber music. Matthew Mallory claimed he had loads of fun. Mallory also came home a winner of the fifties costume contest.

All in all the dance was a success and Kaitlyn raised 1100-1200 dollars to donate to the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.