Carolina Panthers surprise students with prom after tornado devastates SC high school
Makiyah Robertson planned to skip her own prom. For a 16-year-old high school junior with a job of her own, it was just going to be too expensive.
But now she and all her junior and senior classmates from North Central High School in Kershaw County will be going to prom for free, courtesy of the Carolina Panthers football team.
“I’m going to spend all my money on my dress!” Makiyah said. “I’m looking forward to having moments I can look back on when I’m in college and when I grow up. Like, I went to prom and my high school years were so good. That’s what I’m looking forward to saying when I’m older.”
It’s been a hard school year for Makiyah and her classmates.
A month ago, North Central was devastated by a tornado that ripped through the school’s campus on a Saturday night, badly damaging the school and its athletic facilities. For the past few weeks, students have attended classes in the school district’s newly renovated vocational center about 15 minutes away. They likely won’t return to their home school for at least two years.
Students’ and teachers’ moods have been noticeably down ever since, they said.
“There’s definitely been a downer on the school lately,” said Cheyanna Elliott, a math teacher. “But I think that everyone has really come together, and we’ve seen the impact of the community pulling together to bless us. So I think that’s meant a lot to the kids, but it has been different.”
Almost immediately after learning of the school’s tragedy, the Carolina Panthers wanted to step in to help the school rebuild some of what it lost and to help lift the students’ spirits.
“We wanted to do something that was experiential for the students, something that would create a positive memory out of a school year that was interrupted and disrupted,” said Riley Fields, the Panthers’ community relations director.
Fields played host for a surprise assembly Friday afternoon. Even many teachers were kept in the dark about the Panthers’ gift announcement.
The school’s juniors and seniors were gathered in their temporary auditorium, where Panthers mascot Sir Purr led them through several rounds of games that revealed a number of gifts the Panthers organization is providing the school: exercise equipment for the school’s weight room, practice football uniforms that were previously worn by Panthers players, and $5,000 to go toward a new scoreboard at the school’s football stadium.
It all culminated in the grand announcement: The team will host a “Great Gatsby”-themed prom, free for all juniors and seniors, at the Panthers’ new indoor practice facility in Charlotte.
Sheer mirth and excitement filled the auditorium, as Carolina Panther-blue confetti rained down on the elated students.
The football team will charter buses to take students to the prom, and Charlotte’s Atrium Health Foundation will repurpose decor that’s being used for a separate gala at the practice facility two days before the prom.
Carrie Eubanks, a 17-year-old junior who is on the prom planning committee, said she had expected the school would hold its prom in a local event hall, as usual.
“I was very caught off guard” by the announcement, she said. “I’m so excited about it now that I know it’s happening. I can’t wait for it now.”
Makiyah and her friends Alaisha Brooks, a 16-year-old junior, and Maddison Davis, a 17-year-old senior, already were thinking of the dresses they’ll buy and the extraordinary time that awaits them at a the first prom they’ve attended.
“I want to feel beautiful,” Maddison said.
“I want to feel like it’s just me, I’m so sparkly that no one else is there,” Makiyah said.
“We will outshine everybody else,” Alaisha said.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 4:00 PM.
