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Best buddies members dance along to music dressed in their halloween costume.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Best Buddies Club held their annual Halloween party on Oct. 28. There were games, food, dancing and more for all the buddies to enjoy.
Best Buddies is an international organization, with locations all over the world that works to help enhance the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The program has “chapters” throughout the nation allowing many high schools in the U.S. to have a Best Buddies club at their school like MSD.
MSD’s Best Buddies is a part of the South Florida Best Buddies chapter. Their goal is to create one-on-one friendships with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The club helps to incorporate the MSD special needs students into the rest of the student body.
The club has a variety of activities throughout the school year, including monthly “lunch parties” with pizza, drinks, and games and one-on-one buddy hangouts.
They also hold different parties for holidays or important dates throughout the year. Fundraisers and dues for the clubs fund these parties, like on Oct. 21 the club held a Pasquales kick-back event where a percentage of Pasquales proceeds that night went to the club.
On Wednesday, Oct. 27, they held their annual Halloween party in the mini gym on campus. Non-scary costumes were encouraged and masks were required. Pizza, candy, drinks and soda were served to all buddies, peer buddies and general members.
“Overall I’d say the Best buddies Halloween party was a success. Everyone was so excited for our first in-person party in over a year and the buddies and peer buddies had a blast,” President of Best Buddies Raegan DiRenzo said. “We had so much fun seeing everyone all dressed up and hanging out. Our donut eating contest and dance party were big hits, and we cannot wait for our next event.”
There were games like pin the bones on the skeleton, mummy pin bowling, and a donut eating contest; and dancing to staple Halloween and party songs. A photo wall was set up with a “Happy Halloween” sign for the buddies to take pictures in front of. Photos can be found on the club Instagram page.

This was the club’s first party back in school after online learning in the 2020-2021 school year where all of Best Buddies activities were altered to be online. Best Buddies will continue to host in-person events this year for Christmas, Earth Day, Thanksgiving and more.