On Friday, March 10, 2017, the business club and student government held their “Out of the Darkness” dance. Students showed up in yellow to support an important issue that needs to be addressed, suicide awareness.

“I thought the Out of Darkness Dance was for the most part a success and had a great turn out. I thought it was so great to see so many students come out to support an extremely important issue: suicide awareness and depression,” said Ms.Reardon, Holyoke High teacher and Business Club advisor.

Suicide is far too common in the world today and the dance was held on the anniversary of the day when the community lost an important member in 2014, Rojas. Business club president, Catherine Pater ’17, gave a short speech about suicide and depression and how victims often feel lonely and like they have no one to turn to, and expanded on how she hopes this dance helped those to feel less lonely and bring them “out of the darkness.”

Students danced the night away with music provided by Ryan Costello ’17. A prize was awarded to the best yellow costume, going to Gerald Colon 17. Multiple dance contests were also held with winners including: HHS English teacher Mrs. McKenna, Dante Angelini ’19, Michael Laramee ’18 and many others.

“I had a really great time at the dance and was really happy that I could show my support for suicide awareness,” said Samari Kidd ’19.

Pizza and water were sold and students paid a small fee to get in to the dance. The funds raised will be donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. $345 was raised and around 60 people showed up to the dance to support awareness for suicide and depression.