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Around Valentines Day, small Girl Scouts transform into whirling princesses at the Sweetheart Dance.
By JANEL STEPHENS
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 12, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG -- About one in five of the girls in these Scout troops don't have fathers in their household. Others have dads who are away in the military.
So organizers decided to have firefighters be surrogate dads for a night at the Skyway Girl Scouts Neighborhood Sweetheart Dance on Saturday. Other girls brought an uncle or grandfather.
Girls with no available fathers were paired with St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue firefighters and paramedics from Fire Station No. 8, Lake Maggiore and Station No. 11, Lakewood.
It took firefighter John King some time to warm up before stepping onto the dance floor. The 47-year-old father of two admits he was a bit rusty when it came time to boogie down. As the night wore on, King became more comfortable. So did the girls.
"At one particular time, a little girl came up to me, grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the dance floor," King said with a laugh. The two moved to the left, slid to the right, hopped forward and clapped hands to Chicago DJ Casper's Cha Cha Slide.
King was one of 125 people who attended the Sweetheart Dance on Saturday at the Regency Retirement Community Center, 3600 34th St. S.
"Once I got going, it was okay," said King, a firefighter of 22 years. This was his second Sweetheart Dance. He attended with six other firefighters and paramedics of Station No. 8, Lake Maggiore.
The dance is a decade-old tradition for girls ages 5 to 15 in the Skyway Girl Scouts Neighborhood, which stretches from Fifth Avenue N, east of 37th Street including Boca Ciega Bay and Tierra Verde on the west and bordered by Tampa Bay on the south.
The event was originally called the Skyway Girl Scouts Neighborhood Father-Daughter Dance and was later changed to Sweetheart Dance to show sensitivity toward changing family structure. About 20 percent of the 324 girls in the neighborhood troops don't have fathers in their households, said Trudy Popoola, Skyway Girl Scouts Neighborhood director. She added that some of the fathers are in the armed forces and were not able to attend the dance.
"We've just acknowledged the fact that there are a lot of homes without fathers," Popoola said. But the dance still remains a favorite to the girls who spend most of the time doing mother-daughter activities like tea parties and camping.
"It's one of the things the girls traditionally look forward to," Popoola said. "The girls love to dress up and go out. This is the time they get to spend time with their dads."
The event is open to the 25 troops in the Skyway Girl Scouts Neighborhood and other local troops.
"I thought it was excellent," said Capt. Bernard Williams of Station No. 8, who attended along with six others. "It was a way for helping out girls that didn't have fathers and also help out the neighborhood," he said.
The dance is always held around Valentines Day and remains a special one-on-one time between fathers and daughters.
David Bley has made it a tradition to take his two daughters, Robin, 8, and Stacy, 9, out to dinner before going to the dance. The three treat it as a date: Robin and Stacy get their hair done and wear pretty evening gowns while their father wears a sports coat with slacks. He gives them both corsages and takes them out to dinner at Durango's Steakhouse in St. Pete Beach.
Then the three head to the dance to shake the night away.
"It's one of those times when it's just you and them," Bley said.