RHS Project Graduation: The Places They'll Go!

Despite a sweat bath from extended sessions on the dance floor, they managed to gamble away in Boston, play starlet for a night in Hollywood, shark pool in NYC and even wrestle alligators in New Orleans. These were decidedly different settings than the posh country club they'd just been at. Oh they're going places, that's for sure.

The joined together for one last night on Thursday at B.F. Middle School, the site of Project Graduation 2012. More than 50 years old, this village tradition also gives the parents a bit of a breather knowing their kids are safe and under supervision. Out of 398 students, organizers said all but 10 attended.

Apart from the Project Graduation mainstays of DJs lighting up the dance floor, arcade games abound, a massage specialist, henna tattooist, hypnotist and caricaturist in house, you're bound to see some quirks. Co-principal Basil Pizzuto can be seen drinking a Starbucks coffee with a smirk on posterboard, videos play touching and humorous class highlights, and baby pictures of all the grads line the hallway the amusement – and horror – of most. 

In the works for nearly a year, senior parents spent countless hours brainstorming and raising money for the send-off, eventually settling on the theme "The Places You'll Go." Given the range of places the new grads are headed off to come the fall, it appears an apt choice.

"We've had so many people donate their time," Lindsey Barclay, the gracious but exhausted event co-chair said at about 3 a.m. Many of the volunteers didn't even have graduating seniors, added co-chair Kelly Coakley. As kids say their final goodbyes to one another, oddly enough, some parents who haven't seen each other in years were reuniting, Coakley laughed.

Though bittersweet, Barclay, an '84 RHS grad who married her high school sweetheart, seemed in awe of the effort undertaken and the enjoyable outcome.

"The parent volunteers really step up to the plate," she said. "It's just such a fun night."

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