I felt a bit overwhelmed when I visited the sewing group at the United Community Center’s Senior Center, 730 W. Washington St., and realized just how many members were waiting their turn to share their story with me.
That feeling washed away as one-by-one, they shared their beautiful and sometimes tragic memories with me.
The women had all missed out on their quinceañeras, a Latin American rite of passage celebrated on a young woman’s 15th birthday.
Most shared stories about their families not having enough money for a large celebration, while others already had families of their own by that time.
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I'll take the survey!Thankfully, organizers at the United Community Center gave them another chance.
Together as seniors they wore beautiful dresses, danced to traditional songs and took hundreds of photos as they celebrated their quinceañeras. They glowed like teenagers.
What I felt was most important about my conversations with them was a lesson that several of the women taught me.
Although their bodies were older, they had young minds and still carried hopes and dreams that lived with them since their childhoods.
The quinceañera gave many of them a chance to realize one of those dreams.
Their stories made this story my favorite of 2023.
Fatima Spredemann says
Thank you to the real organizer, the teacher of this lovely group, Victoria Vasquez de Plasencia, she spent many days and weeks putting together the whole event, helping the students with their dresses and getting donations!
Socorro says
The celebration of the Quinceañera party by the participants of the United Community Senior Center sewing class began with the desire of one of the participants named Carmen Roman (mili), because she always had the dream to celebrate that special occasion with her family from El Centro and from there our instructor got the idea of celebrating not only Carmen’s but including the rest of the classmates that never celebrated this very special ocasión so she wanted to make sure to do it in a big way.
Then our teacher/director Victoria Vasquez de Placencia (Vicky) who is a multi-talented person, helped us make alterations to our dresses so that they would look beautiful therefore we will look as beautiful as possible.
Vicky not only organized the trousseau of each one but also on the day of the celebration she helped with the hair and makeup and Socorro Robles also helped with the manicures from 2
days before and on the day of the event she volunteered to help with makeup and hair, she took all her equipment to be able to achieve everything.
The planning and organization of all the minor details was our teacher Victoria Vasquez de Placensia.