The prom I never had

Recently I listened to an episode of This American Life with many different stories and each of them about prom. The first was a story of a group of kids who had a tornado hit their town while they were in prom. The others were stories reminding us of how important the prom may or may not have been to us at the time. Looking back on my prom I can't help but think of how much money I must have spent on that evening. And not only that but how much money our student body must have spent on it. And in all honesty, I'm not sure that I had that great of a time. This past weekend I was able to attend a prom like after graduation party here at NPH.

Everything about it was lovely. The thing that struck me the most was that as far our standards go in the U.S. for a prom, the decorations were fairly simple. Here at NPH it's not like there is a huge amount of money flying around so spending money on extravagant things like prom decorations is not the biggest concern. But I can say without hesitation that the kids seemed to have more fun than I did at my own prom. Every single person spent the evening dancing for hours in the hot heat.

I was also so thankful that we as the volunteers were included in their celebration. The kids never failed to make us feel welcome in their circles of movement. This year prom was filled with dancing, laughter and sincere excitement that you cannot buy. 

Here are the volunteers and I taking modeling tips from Natascha for our prom photos.