VANCOUVER, Wash. — Parent volunteers transformed Vancouver's Marshall Park into the place to be for Hudson's Bay High School students on Saturday night.
It was their junior senior prom.
Cymany O'Brien’s son is a senior at the school. She helped organize the event. In the face of the pandemic she and other parents wanted to do something their children would remember.
“We wanted them to be able to kind of capture some more memories as they close out the school year and have this special night and see them dressed up,” said O’Brien.
Many of the students arrived in gowns and suits, the girls wearing corsages on their wrists as they would at any prom.
“There's been a lot of buzz with the seniors, and the ones that are going to be showing up are going to be going all out for it, so it's going to be pretty fun,” said senior Duke Beamer.
A photographer took pictures and a student DJ played the music. Local businesses helped put together a dessert bar.
This is the kind of event the students were craving, especially as there was no official prom at Hudson's Bay this year.
“I feel like it's a pretty big deal just because of how this last year went," Beamer said. "We didn't get homecoming this year, and we didn't get lot of sports, they were kind of crammed together, so it's a pretty big deal having prom this year. It's pretty important to us.”
It turned into just the kind of event parents had hoped for and the teenagers wanted, a way for them to have a happy memory in this challenging time.