Neighborhood hosts driveway DJ party
From their individual driveways, the families of one Valencia neighborhood block recently held a socially distanced DJ party for kids and families.
The event, which lasted for about 30 minutes, featured seven families from the 23000 block of Bajada Drive and locally based DJ Graham Silver, from Silvertunes Entertainment, playing music for them to dance to. At Silver’s suggestion, parents and kids alike followed along as the DJ led them through various dances, songs and group games, including Simon Says and Disney song trivia.
All the families were asked to come up with team names for the games, and then they competed against one another, resident Jenny Lukas said. The teams had names such as Cool Kids On The Block, Super Bro’s, Barrel of Monkeys and Corner Circus.
Lukas, a Bajada Drive resident, organized the event because she wanted her 10-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and her neighborhood friends to have some cheer and fun, she said.
“This whole pandemic situation has been really hard on the children and (Gabriella),” said Lukas. “Online school has been kind of stressful, and not seeing her friends, and she had her double-digit birthday but we had to cancel all of our plans.”
Silver, Lukas said, did not take payment for MCing the socially distanced family event, donating his services during a time when events he would normally work, such as weddings, dances and parties, have all been canceled.
“My favorite part was seeing everybody outside, having fun,” said Gabriella, “and, you know, just being a part of something.”
Gabriella added that she knows everyone has been cooped up like she has for the past couple of weeks, and getting some exercise together “put the spirit back into people.” She said neighbors she rarely sees even came out to enjoy the group activity.
“It was really cool to see half of them come outside and dance and have fun,” the 10-yearold said.