Every year, Gateway’s Student Council and other Gateway clubs join together to hold an annual Senior Citizen Dance for the elders in our communities. The event has a different theme every year. For 2025, the theme was Kentucky Derby, being named “A Day at the Races!”
Overall, the event went fantastically smoothly. The seniors were served delicious pasta, salad, and a roll for dinner, followed by a range of desserts! They had the choice between Pisker’s Bakery Cake, cupcakes, rice pudding, and other desserts. 200 seniors attended the event!
While the High School Student Council executed it by organizing, decorating, serving, and dancing at the event, it would not have been a success without the help of other clubs and organizations within and outside of the Gateway community. The Middle School Student Council was happy to help, putting together a plethora of raffle baskets for the elders to win. Along with the Middle Schools StuCo’s prize donations, a parent also donated a few mystery bags for the seniors to win. Furthermore, the Middle School baking club donated the cupcakes we served.
The Gateway cooking classes and our Chef Ingemi donated the rice pudding and garden salad. For the main meal, we received donations from the Zallies Foundation (Shoprite) in West Deptford and the GREA. While it wasn’t donated, the cake served was sourced from Pisker’s Bakery! Each year, StuCo receives donations, and this year was no different!
Raygen Bennett, an 11th grader who was present and helped said she really enjoye
d the dance because regardless of their age, they still knew how to party and made the dance a really fun time.
Another 11th grader, Mikenzie Resnick, said she enjoyed “seeing the seniors smile and laugh.”
Overall, the Senior Citizen Dance was a huge success – seniors, volunteers, and the teachers helping all enjoyed the dance and different parts. Some enjoyed helping the seniors, and others enjoyed dancing with the seniors to the music!
