by Olive Pea
The Spring Fling took place at the Danville Grange on February 19, 2022 from 6:30pm to 10:30pm. It was a drizzly Saturday evening and was hosted by TVE. The TVE leadership team and a few members of the TVE community arrived at 5:00pm to set up. There were bright rainbow banners tied up above the many large windows, bright and colorful tablecloths draped over the rectangular tables. Long wavy red, green, blue, and purple streamers hanging down over doorways and bouquets of purple, blue, and yellow flowers that Ava Salado put together, all from her garden.
Then the food came out.
Boy was I happy, because that gooey pizza was exactly what my nose wanted to smell. Some people grabbed food while others waited for the party. At around 6:30pm, people started to arrive. There were nearly 80 Spring Fling attendees! Some people played the cup toss, where you bounce ping pong balls off the table and try to get it into the cup worth the most points. There was also toilet toss,(which was very popular, even amongst the adults) and toilet paper was flying everywhere! The kids played ring toss, where there were short pool noodles that were taped with duct tape to form rings, and a few of those rings had short pool noodles taped to them so you could stand them up to make poles to throw the rings over.There were also face gems that the attendees had fun putting on their own or other people’s faces, a colorful photo booth that had paper photo props of mustaches, top hats, and glittery golden bows, and a spring flower craft where you would decorate your own foam flower with glitter sequences and other craft items, and of course, the glow sticks.
The party started with the cupcake walk. The DJ played music, and when it stopped someone called out a number, and whoever was standing on that number won a cupcake. Then everybody lined up, taller in the back, shorter in the front, and took a few terrific group pictures.
Then the DJ said something like, “I am going to play a couple of dance party favorites that you should know, otherwise, where have you been for like, the past 20-30 years?” Then the house lights went out, and you could see all the glow sticks glowing in rainbow colors all around the room. Everybody shrieked and shouted in excitement. The DJ got the dance party started by playing the YMCA, and then the Macarena. Everybody either danced the choreographed dances to the songs, or made up their own dances. When those songs were over, more people went over to the games and crafts, and grabbed food from pizza to popcorn and even cotton candy. Some of the kids formed a line by holding each other’s hands and ran around the dance floor, while others made long strings of glow sticks (that didn’t work very well and kept breaking apart, but they used it anyway) and used them to jump rope and do the limbo.
The Spring Fling was an excellent and wonderfully colorful way to get together and kick off the spring season of 2022 for the TVE community. It was also just a hugely fun way to spend time with friends and family.
The Lighthouse 