Student Council Cancels Make-a-Wish Dance

Hastings High’s annual Make-A-Wish dance will not be held this school year. The dance is typically put on in the winter months of the year to raise funds for charity and gives students a fun activity to participate in.  

The dance contributes to the Make-a-Wish foundation. The mission of the foundation is to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions and to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. The dance acquires an average of $600 for Make-a-Wish.

“We are working on setting up more fundraisers, but none of them will meet the amount the dance had,” student council advisor Jim Fielder said.

After finding out the dance was cancelled, Principals and student council members arranged for the teachers’ money for March’s jean-Fridays to go to the Make-a-Wish foundation. Students have no way of helping add to this fundraiser, unlike the dance.

“The dance was never canceled because the dance was never scheduled,” principal Dr. Tom Szlanda said.

The student council had provided dates on December 6, 2017 for the 2018 dance. There were three dates provided; January 5, February 15, and March 2. Szlanda compared these dates with events going on and could not come to agreement but provided student council with two other options: March 10 or March 24. After some deliberation, student council pressed forward with March 24th as their expected date. Student council prepared a plan after receiving Szlanda’s perceived approval for the dance. Student council was even in contact with a DJ for the dance.

After having built their plans around being able to host the dance on March 24th, student council was upset when Szlanda had turned down all their plans last Friday. Szlanda let student council know that since January, he hasn’t been able to make arrangements for the dance to have any administration present to supervise.

“I was very disappointed because I was really looking forward to one last dance with all four grades of our school. I also really enjoy this dance because it is a lot more casual and it is a lot less expensive as compared to prom,” senior Julia Reimer, vice president of student council, said.

One of the students’ favorite things to look forward to was the opportunity to pick out a theme for their class to wear to the dance together. This is one of the high school’s more affordable dances compared to homecoming or prom and the turnout of students is great for the fundraiser.

“I am upset that I won’t be able to attend this my freshman year,” freshman Anna Wibbles said.  

There are numerous freshmen who don’t get to experience the Make a Wish dance, which has become a tradition in the last several years.

Despite students’ eagerness to go to the dance, administration believes that dances are on the decline.

“Through my research and looking into things, in the past, dances were more of a social gathering where everybody comes to meet up, see people. Now everyone has a smartphone, social media, and this is how students, kids, socialize, so we are finding that even with homecoming and prom, which are big things, students are only sticking around for crowning, and then they take off and do other things because they can contact anyone and everyone with their smartphone,” Szlanda said.