The seniors at Bishop Maginn met with the faculty this week to talk about their prom, the last ever prom at Bishop Maginn High School, which is closing for good in June. Their plans have changed.

I had proposed raising $5,000 from the Army Of Good to give these children – especially the refugee children – a prom they would remember and that they deserve, perhaps at a nearby country club.

I chose that number;  they never ask for anything. I have come to love this school and these children and wanted to give them a memorable goodbye. Their lives and their past two years have been very difficult.

They very much want their prom. But we will do it differently.

As we began this fund-raising,  the Ukraine invasion occurred. The students, teachers, and the rest of us have all witnessed the horrific killing and brutality inflicted on that country by a sociopath with a nation and an army.

A warning for us all. Many of these children have had that experience, it was not remote to them.

It is a frightening and disturbing thing to see the bloodshed every day. This has been especially hard on the refugee students. Their prom looms larger all the time.

But day by day, a fabulous $5,000 prom, a country club prom,  seemed somewhat out of place – for me, for some in the Army Of Good, and the students and faculty. But the suffering gets worse and worse.

There is no escaping it or its implications.

The school has received somewhere between $200 and $500 in prom donations – and I’ve received about $700 in small donations. People are sending a lot of their excess money to the Ukraine, which is appropriate right now.

The students are very grateful for the money we have raised. They want to apply it to getting a first-rate DJ to handle the music at the prom. They have a plan for the refugee families to provide the food, as they did last year.

They asked if we could support a prom wish list in a week to buy some decorations and favors, and I said yes, we would be happy to do that.

All donations received and those incoming will be used to pay for a meaningful and memorable prom.

We’re dropping the $5,000 goal out of respect for and acknowledgment of the suffering in Ukraine. I’ll be happy to take any more donations people want to give to the prom, but I’m stopping fund-raising to a goal.

The landscape has been changed; it is now covered in blood.  They feel the war very deeply. That was what they wanted then, but what they wanted has changed. I completely understand their feelings.

My job is not to tell them what to want but to listen to what they want and help them get it. I am an advocate, not a master.

The war doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a prom or don’t want one, but the war has changed what they want. They have a great need to leave the school on a high, grateful, and dignified note.

They need their prom more than ever.

These children know what it is like to be invaded, slaughtered, forced out of their homes and country, lose parents and grandparents to genocide, and left to spend years in refugee camps.

They relate to the Ukrainian people; they know their suffering better than anyone.

Watching the news has triggered many memories and made them somewhat somber.

This more intimate prom, says Sue Silverstein, “is where we’ve all decided to leave it. That’s what the kids want. No more worries about money other than what there is, and next month, we hope you can help with a wish list for the prom. Is that okay?”

It is okay.

And the students decided it would be appropriate and essential to have it at the school, which they would never see again.

Sue added that “I don’t want to stress out you or your people.. We can pay for the music with the donations that already came in. People want to help Ukraine right now, and that’s as it should be. We’ll get parents to donate the food and prepare a wish list for decorations. Next month?”

We did well under these unprecedented circumstances.

We have raised just about enough money on hand to support what the students need for a good send-off of their school and to begin a new chapter in their lives. The prom will enable them to say goodbye to their friends and classmates before they scatter to different places.

They thank you, and I thank you.

We will launch the wish list sometime in the next two weeks, which will be simpler and appropriate for the times and needs. And it is what they want, not what I wish to or anybody else tells them to want.

I thank you, as always, for supporting this effort and these beautiful people. The work of this magical school will live on and on.

We have supported them at every turn and helped to give them a lovely prom, and they deserve every dollar of it.

On to the wish list.