Into the groove at Winterfest

By Denise Dick

The eighth annual event took place at the Mahoning Country Club.

GIRARD — Matia Wright walked around the Winterfest Dance with a boy on each arm.

“I like everything,” the 16-year-old Campbell Memorial High School student said.

She and classmates Juan Delacruz, 16; Joshua Williams, 17; Kraig Lofton, 14; and John Michael Smitzer, 17, were among more than 100 students from Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties attending the eighth annual dance Wednesday at the Mahoning Country Club.

The event was sponsored by East High School’s multihandicapped/developmentally handicapped special-education units.

The five CMHS students dressed in their holiday best to strut their stuff on the dance floor.

Juan was hoping to hear some 50 Cent. John Michael waited for a few Beyonc tunes.

Josh, on Matia’s left, listed Mariah Carey, while Kraig, on her right, said he liked everything.

Matia wanted to hear “Rain on Me,” an Ashanti song that she and Kraig like to sing together.

Their intervention specialist at school, Darlene Basista, said her students look forward to the dance every year. Wednesday’s marks Basista’s third.

“This dance is so much fun,” she said.

Her students teach her all of the latest dances, she said.

“Transit Service donates our transportation, the food is always good and the cookies are like an Italian wedding,” Basista chuckled.

Jeanne Constantino, a special-education teacher at East, started the dance to offer an outing to special-needs students in the Mahoning Valley.

Canfield hosts a special-needs prom each spring, but Constantino wanted to provide another venue.

“Between the time school starts and May there was nothing for them,” she said.

The dance floor was bustling as disc jockey Jamael “Tito” Brown, also Youngstown’s 3rd Ward city councilman, played party favorites including “Electric Slide,” “YMCA” and “Cha Cha Slide.”

“Once they start dancing, they don’t stop,” Constantino said.

V&M Star of Youngstown was the biggest sponsor of this year’s dance, said Sarah Patrick, a guidance counselor for Youngstown city schools. The company is involved in a lot of philanthropic activities and learned of the dance from news coverage about it a few years ago, Patrick said.

Denise DeBartolo York of the DeBartolo Corp., also a sponsor this year, has been sponsoring the event since its first year, Constantino said.

Kevyn Rooney, 21, of Trumbull Career and Technical Center, moved around the dance floor like one of the contestants on “Dancing with the Stars.”

“I just like dancing,” she said.

Wednesday was the first Winterfest Dance for Kari Hubler, 21, a 2006 Howland High School graduate. She came this year because a friend invited her.

“I like dancing,” Kari said.