About 60 students from a training program at Occasions Planning and Party Services were honored at the company’s Leading by Example Business Award Dinner Dance held at Buckley’s in Sheepshead Bay on Jan. 18.
The event, which also honored 14 local businesses, celebrated the students’ graduation from a four-week party-planning course, which focused on dazzling decorations, according to the instructor who organized the dinner.
“It is party decorating so that’s everything from A to Z — balloon decorating, floral decorating, fabric draping, and event planning,” said Sharmaine Robinson-Gayle, who has been teaching party preparation classes for about 13 years.
The celebration — which featured live music from the Andefekt Caribbean Band — also raised money for charities serving Haiti.
One of the honorees said the event was the perfect chance for him to blow off some steam.
“It is kind of hard not to enjoy this industry — my middle name is basically ‘Party,’ ” said Paul Stocker of Qualatex-Pioneer Balloon Company, which supplies balloons to Robinson-Gayle.
Even though a nationwide helium shortage has hurt some businesses, Robinson-Gayle said the balloon industry will never bust — and she said she is teaching her students how to morph their balloon sculptures and designs to fit future parties of the century, which may have to do without the lighter-than-air gas.
“I was teaching air-filled designs in 2002 — designs that they’re just creating now because of what’s happening with the helium. Anything that you would see done in helium and wonder ‘Is that helium?’ I was already doing that in air,” said Robinson-Gayle.
