Prom a decadent, dancing occasion for Sonoma County’s special needs youth

A DJ’s dance-happy music paused only rarely Saturday night at the elegant Mayacama Golf Club near Windsor.

Likewise, the gown-bedecked and sweetly smiling Kristi Collier.

“It’s awesome,” exuded Collier, who lives in Windsor, is 25 and on weekdays is paid as she hones her work skills at a Round Table Pizza parlor. She danced in place, song after song, contentedly solo, and gazed over a tile-floored and nicely appointed room alive with other teens and young adults with at least two things in common: substantial developmental disabilities and the universal love of dancing to a rousing beat with other human beings.

At this dance party, Collier observed, “Everybody just gets along.”

About 200 special-needs young people turned out at the exclusive, hill-shrouded Mayacama club for the fourth annual prom conceived and produced just for them. It was not a skimpy affair.

Many of the guests were treated in advance to donated gowns and tuxedos, and all enjoyed a corsage and boutonnière, plentiful food, sparkling cider served in stemmed glasses, a photo booth and goodie bags.

“I like it! It’s fun,” said 35-year-old Alheli Earles of Cotati. “It’s good music and good food.

“And I love to dance.”

Not so Jonah Hoffman.

“I’m not much of dancer,” admitted the 20-year-old Santa Rosan, who gains work experience at the Oliver’s Market in Cotati through the Transition Program of the Sonoma County Office of Education.

Looking sharp in a tux loaned by an uncle, Hoffman said he’d never danced and didn’t plan to that night. But it was clear from the look on his face he was having fun.

“I just like to hang out,” he said.

For four hours, the guests, most of them aged from 14 to 28, greeted friends, posed for photos, ate and mingled and laughed. Many danced and danced, some shyly, some exuberantly, as the evening’s hosts and volunteers took in the scene and allowed their hearts to melt.

The extraordinary prom is the brainchild of 20-year-old Victoria Cahill, who produced the first one in 2014 as her senior project at Windsor High School.

She was inspired by having grown up with her older brother, Justin, who is severely autistic. Victoria loved going to her high school proms, and it occurred to her that the dressing-up and anticipation and joy of the prom is something that most young people with significant disabilities do not experience.

With the help of her mother, Cindy Cahill, Victoria three years ago raised money and put in countless hours planning for a prom for teens and young adults with special needs. A story about her project in The Press Democrat that year, 2014, caught the eye of Patrick Dugan.

He works in the outdoor-advertising business and lives in the Windsor-Healdsburg area. And he has a brother, Terry, who deals with the limiting effects of cerebral palsy and intellectual disability. Dugan reached out to Victoria and asked if he could help with her prom.

She told him a small cash donation would be nice. He said, in effect, how about a big one?

A member of the Mayacama Golf Club, Dugan hit up his golf buddies for donations.

“It’s probably the easiest fundraising I’ve ever done,” he said.

Victoria arranged for the ?2014 prom to be held in a Windsor church hall. She and her mother and some helpers decorated the place, arranged for music, brought in food and made certain that everyone needing donated prom garb was set up, all at no cost to the guests.

That first year, about 130 teens and young adults with special needs attended, many accompanied by parents or caregivers.

“I thought it was going to be one-and-done thing,” Victoria said.

But the evening was such sheer joy that it was clear to all that the prom had to happen again.

In 2015, Victoria was off to school at San Diego State University, so her mother and several Windsor High students took up the challenge of pulling off the second prom.

Last year, supporter-from-the-get-go Pat Dugan delivered big news to Cindy Cahill and the Windsor seniors who were planning for the third prom: The people running the Mayacama club asked that the dance be held there.

Following the 2016 prom, Dugan and Victoria and her mother and some other partners moved the endeavor to the next step by creating a nonprofit organization responsible for planning and producing what’s now formally called the Justin Cahill Special Needs Prom.

One refinement to Saturday night’s party was that there were fewer parents and caregivers in the hall, allowing the dancers more room and more of a sense that it was their party. The hosts invited those who accompanied the primary guests to enjoy a quite-lovely reception in the golf club’s wine cave.

Dugan said the vision is “to treat these special-needs people to the night of their life.”

Of the nearly 200 guests of honor Saturday night, about half live in Sonoma County, with the others coming from Marin, Napa and Solano counties.

They live with disabilities that include Down syndrome, autism and neurological disorders. Some of the guests live with their families, others in group homes or in places of their own.

Dugan said the Justin Cahill Special Needs Prom is supported almost entirely by Sonoma County people and businesses. He and Victoria and Cindy Cahill and the other volunteers aspire, he said, to “make it local and make it special, and keep it simple.”

Victoria, who is now back living in Windsor, will attend Sonoma State University in the fall as she pursues a career as - no surprise here - a special-education teacher. She intends that the spring prom inspired by her love for her brother, whose disability would not allow him to attend, will continue indefinitely.

Vowed Kristi Collier, who danced pretty much all night Saturday, “As long as they put it on, I will be here.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.