Post Prom has a 65 year + tradition in our community and the committee has spent months consideration, planning, research and brainstorming - with the foundation board as well as with city and county offices & health departments – to find a way to host a 1200+ gathering safely so as not to break this incredible Rotary and Community Tradition.  While we announced early on to the students and schools we would NOT CANCEL this year’s Post Prom and A Night to Remember Prom, it’s with a broken heart that a decision has been made to eliminate the IN PERSON large events in 2020 due to the current COVID-19 situation. While several scenarios were carefully and thoughtfully considered for months, ultimately the elimination of risk with our traditional events was not possible.

 

 

Having said that, we are EXCITED to announce that we will be offering an alternative way for students to gather for a unique 2020 Post Prom & ANTR Experience! This will be two-fold:  

 

1. First, we want to encourage these graduating seniors to get dressed up, do their hair and enjoy a fabulous dinner on the town!  With the help of area groups like Real Racine, RAMAC and other similar organizations west of I-94, we’d like businesses to invite these kids in for carry out or dine in dinner experiences. We see this as a way to support small business while coming together as a community to offer meaningful small-group celebrating options.  We may even loan out prom decorations at area restaurants where they are seeing a good amount of reservations being made. We do expect business to follow their municipality’s guidelines.

 

2. Secondly, we are in the works to create an online virtual dance!   This will likely include local and national celebrity cameos, shout outs and interviews!  We are also looking for ways we can have students send in their prom pics and videos, from prom dinners, for us to air online.  We may even have “Rotary Spies” around town, taking photos as we see kids dining and enjoying walks along the lake and taking pictures at parks.  This virtual dance is our best effort to offer them a SAFE solution vs. mass gathering.  We also hope this deters drinking and driving – which is the reason our event started in the first place. Ideally, we will be able to air this for the entire community to watch – as we have for the past many years!  We will try to include pre-recorded school videos and graduation pictures for any kids/schools who send them in. We have lots of ideas to play with!

 

3.  Lastly, we also are discussing the possibility of inviting 2020 grads to attend “normal” Post Prom & ANTR in 2021.

 

 

Details for all of this are actively being developed but we need your support and volunteer assistance to make this happen!

 

 

On the question of budget – we have only spent a small amount so far in 2020 (mostly decorations and activities) and are hoping this event will come in FAR less than our normal combined budgets for both Saturday/Sunday prom events. We are hoping to offer this complimentary to the kids this year, with the help of sponsors to offset the cost of this.  We are already receiving emails from businesses interested in sponsoring “whatever we do!”

 

 

We know it will never live up to the in-person standards set by over 65 years of Post Proms, but we will work very hard to still present an exciting and amazing experience – both that our students deserve and one which our club is known for. This alternative plan will broadcast to the media later this week, so please keep this news within the club until the public announcement is made. We felt it necessary that all members of the club were directly informed before informed the students, schools and public.

 

Thank you for your continued support of Post Prom and our club.

Kelli Stein & Sara Luther, Prom Chairs

Sara Luther | Director TalentBridge
TalentBridge-Gurnee | 1800 Nations Dr Ste 218 | Gurnee, IL 60031-9174
Office: (224) 321-5707 | Cell: 262-408-7441 | Fax: 224-241-3250 
www.goodwilltalentbridge.com | Sara.Luther@goodwillsew.com