By Faith Griffiths, Bennington DREAMer


On Sunday, May 17th, Bennington College was host to an event unlike any the school had ever seen before. Thirteen college mentors from the Bennington DREAM Program, along with eleven mentees from the Willowbrook Housing Community planned, organized, and presented The Viking Cabaret Dinner. For two fun filled hours, DREAMers fed and entertained their guests with eleven original acts from mentors and mentees. These acts included poetry readings, photography, visual artwork, lacrosse tricks, skits, and tap dances. Guests included family and friends from Willowbrook, as well as Bennington students and members of the Bennington community at large. Mentors and their ready-to-help friends, spent the better half of the day setting up tables in the Greenwall Auditorium, decorating the space with balloons and clotheslines full of their mentees artwork, and cooking up burgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, carrot ginger soup, greens, watermelon, cantaloupe, homemade lemonade, and of course, The Willowbrook DREAM Program’s favorite snack, midnight cowboy cookies.

The Cabaret Dinner was a huge success for several reasons: 1) With tickets and donations, mentors and mentees raised over $700, which will goes back to their program so they can do more activities, trips, and events with the children in the program. 2) The Cabaret Dinner was the first time many of the mentees had the chance to perform and present creative works that they did themselves and could be proud of. The initial goal of the event was for mentors to share their own skills and knowledge from their various areas of study, and to teach the kids that art and creativity come in many forms, be it dance, poetry, music, a skit, visual art, or photography. The mentors all got a bit teary when one of their mentees, Paul, happily said afterwards, “I never knew before this that I was an artist!” and lastly, 3) DREAMers were able to encourage the children’s parents and other members of the Willowbrook community to come and support their kids, as well as build connections between members of our college and the Bennington community.

The Viking Cabaret was made possible by donations from wonderfully generous local businesses, a grant awarded from the DREAM Alumni Org, and countless hours of hard work from mentors and mentees. Congratulations to the Bennington DREAM Program for such a great night!