The Cape Elizabeth prom will go on Saturday, despite a major setback earlier this year.

In early March, Cape Elizabeth students learned that the Portland venue where their prom was supposed to be held, The Pavilion, had closed down, and their $2,500 deposit – money the junior class had been raising for three years – would not be returned.

Due to the generosity of the Nonatum Resort in Kennebunk, which offered to waive the fee for the student event and even kick in an unlimited supply of soda, the prom will be held on the same day it was originally planned for.

Alan Atkins, a Cape Elizabeth attorney and father of senior Emily Atkins, offered his services at no charge in trying to recover the deposit. According to Cape Elizabeth High School Principal Jeff Shedd, that money has not yet been returned.

“I have some hope,” Shedd said of eventually recovering the deposit.

At the time of The Pavilion’s closure, the Office of the Attorney General also offered to help recover deposits, through its Consumer Mediation Program, for people who had events planned at the venue. Calls made to the office’s spokesman, David Loughran, were not returned.

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Shedd said due to the distance students will now have to travel in order to get to the event, the school has arranged for chartered buses to transport students for $10 per ticket. The school will only allow students to travel to and from the prom only by the chartered bus, a private limousine or their parents’ dropping them off and picking them up at the door.

“We don’t want any kids driving themselves,” Shedd said.

Junior Carolyn Doane, head of the high school’s prom committee, said arranging transportation was “the only major thing we had to take care of.” Doane said students are excited about the new venue.

“It turned out really well,” she said.

Carrie Apanovitch, faculty adviser to the prom committee, said the prom was originally going to have a 007 theme, but that was more suited for the dacor of The Pavilion, which had black and white tiled floors and red velvet curtains, than it is for the Nonantum. Instead, Apanovitch said, the committee plans to go for “seaside elegance.”

Doane said because the resort is so beautiful already, the decorations will be limited. “It’s going to look really nice,” she said.


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