Dress, hair, makeup, shoes, date. This is a checklist girls going to The Counties Assemblies Dance follow to ensure an amazing night. But due to COVID-19, this checklist has been taken from juniors’ hands and torn in half.
The Counties Assemblies Dance, more commonly known as Counties, is an annual charity dance held in February by The Counties Assemblies for all juniors in Fairfield County. The dance was cancelled in 2021 due to COVID, and disappointingly, cancelled in early October for the 2022 dance.
Juniors were devastated when Counties was cancelled.
“I was so sad when I found out Counties was cancelled,” Claire Sandhaus ’23 said. “A lot of us girls have prepared and asked out friends if they would go with us.”
Ashley Julien ’23 had been discussing with fellow classmates this shared sentiment, when she came up with a possible idea that could make a new Counties dance.
“My uncle owns a party planning venue so I texted him and asked if he had any available dates in the winter time,” Julien said. “He happened to have a free date on the same day Counties was supposed to be.”
After coming up with this idea and pitching it to some friends, Julien had gained some support for this idea and used many different forms of social media to communicate this idea with the class of 2023.
“I posted in the Facebook and Saturn group chats and have been talking to people and telling them to tell their friends to all fill out the form I made as just a quick way to see if people would attend this dance,” Julien said.

This new dance would cost the same as it would to attend Counties, $150 per couple or $75 per individual. However, there will be no rule mandating that everyone must be accompanied by a date like The Counties Assemblies implements, making it more inclusive.
Many were stoked with this new plan, and said that they liked the fact that the new venue not only offered the same accommodations as Counties, but also more: It costs the same, people would now be able to go alone and there would be a winter dance for the junior class.
I will definitely be attending these Counties if it happens,” Sandhaus said. “I am happy we can go without dates that we have asked prior to Counties being cancelled.”
One of the drawbacks to this new plan is that the dance venue is in New York and people would need to find their own transportation there and back.
“The tricky part is going all the way to and from New York, where the venue is, and it could be difficult to plan, as well as afford,” Sam Pirkl ’23 said.
Although the dance is just in the planning phase, Julien is hopeful that it could give the class of 2023 the dance they were waiting for.
“This new plan is a great idea,” Sandhaus said. “I think it is great that a group of kids have come together to try and make this happen. It shows how much we want to be able to attend the dance.”