Traditional dance threatened by budget cuts for disability services
By Richard Halstead for Marin Independent Journal

There were colored balloons and a band playing but the sweetest music at last night's Easter Seals Spring Formal was the love in the eyes of Mike Wold as he hugged his sister, Melissa.

Melissa, who wore a big floppy hat with a flower attached and thick glasses, leaned against her brother and rested her chin on his chest. Like the other 220 people at the dance, Melissa - Mike's only sibling - is developmentally disabled.

"She's been coming here since 1989. It was her prom," Wold said. "That is what this whole thing was started for. There was no high school prom for some of the special needs people who were going to special schools."

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