Homecoming dances are known to be a staple in schools across America. Shenendehowa’s student body got to enjoy this tradition this year because of SFA Senate’s efforts to bring back the excitement.

Back in 2019, Shenendehowa held its last homecoming dance before Covid-19 hit. Throughout the pandemic, the school continued to be danceless for two years until now, when the SFA Senate held a homecoming dance on October 15th.

The Senate has been working very hard since the beginning of this school year to coordinate this dance for the highschoolers. Treasurer Chuba Jon-Nwakalo says that the planning process wasn’t always easy, since there wasn’t much of a precedent to work off of. “The Senate has many members, and communicating with each person on what to do can be hard at times. Also since 2019 was the last dance, we were a little bit on our own in terms of planning.”

However, these challenges didn’t slow the Senate down at all and ticket sales went off without a hitch. According to vice president Jason Orenstein, the best part of the entire pre-dance planning process was watching ticket sales. “Whenever I stopped by to check on who was selling there was nearly always a line so it was invigorating to see the High School so excited to come for the dance.”

Additionally, president Neil Lazurus recalled that even after the tickets were completely sold out, the Senate still received an influx of emails from students asking where they could purchase tickets.

Communications head Kellan Gunner saw the dance from a financial point of view. “For Senate, our club funds were affected by Covid and we haven’t had any opportunities to fundraise, and we got a better turnout than we imagined and made a ton of money.”

Advisor Ann Conway reported that the turnout of the dance was much larger than 2019’s, since student attendance shot up from 150 to over 600. Among the 600 was a small group of seniors, around 100 juniors, and the remainder being sophomores and freshmen.

Shenendehowa’s National Art Honors Society and Photography Club both made contributions by providing art supplies and taking photographs to capture the essence of the dance. In addition, the student-formed band Sorry for Being Kate and senior Darren Cheng performed live music.

After the dance was such a success, students are left wondering what the SFA Senate has planned for the remainder of the year. Orenstein reveals, “The next big thing for the senate is Candy Cane Donations, which will run from Thanksgiving to Holiday Break like it usually does. After that, it is dodgeball for the spring! There are also talks of maybe doing a winter ball after the success of Homecoming.”

As Kellan Gunner reported, “I’ve never seen people so excited to go to a school dance before… It was a massive success, and we’d be foolish not to hold one next year.”