Trine students host dance for seniors

About 35 Trine University students hosted an April Fools Dance for residents of Cameron Woods Senior Living Community.

Sherrie Grant, activities coordinator at Cameron Woods, said members of the Theta Phi Alpha sorority have been visiting Cameron Woods since February to share birthday treats. When Anne Phillips, the sorority’s philanthropy chair, asked Grant about the sorority hosting some sort of special event, Grant suggested a dance.

Students from Theta Phi Alpha and the Delta Chi fraternity teamed with Cameron Woods workers on April 1 to decorate the facility’s dining room and café with high-heeled shoes and strings of lights. The students returned in their dress clothes to spend some time getting to know the residents, sign their dance cards and take orders for refreshments, which included high-heel shaped cookies and sandwiches, mock sushi and party mix prepared by the Cameron Woods kitchen staff.

In her writeup of the event, Anna Hammond, a resident of Cameron Woods, said the students “handled us like trained professionals, nudging most of us onto the floor where we did our best swaying and shifting our weight from one foot to the other.”

“I am approaching 93 and I held hands with a 95-year-old gentleman, and we walked in rhythm and giggled like teenagers, remembering our ‘salad days,’ ” Hammond said.

“Angola is surely proud that these student role models live among us,” Hammond continued. “Some of us may not be able to do this again, but golly we’ll remember this one a long time.”