DJ Greg Devorce stepped up to the microphone, welcomed everyone to the Best Buddies Valentine’s Day dance on Sunday afternoon and turned up “You are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder.

The roughly 40 people in attendance, including Devorce’s buddy, criminal justice and criminology freshman Jared Arthur, got ready to dance.

“The one thing I love to do is spin the records,” Devorce said, dancing as hard as anyone as he played “old-school R&B,” from Luther Vandross to Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.

“My focus is to play what the people request,” he said. “I’m just trying to be a black man’s Dick Clark, if you will.”

Devorce, 40, works full-time with the Ground Sanitation department on the Tempe campus. He said Best Buddies at ASU lets him feel more connected with the enthusiasm of the college students around him.

“It’s a darn good support group,” he said. “It hooks me up with college kids, me with a developmental disability, and we go and hang out. We go to the cinema, and chat on e-mail.”

Margo Johnson, college buddy director for Best Buddies at ASU, said the group’s sole mission is to pair college students with people who have intellectual disabilities to form lasting friendships. The students and their buddies normally meet on an individual basis to play board games, watch movies, have picnics or go shopping together.

“That’s it — you just hang out and do whatever you enjoy doing together,” she said.

But Best Buddies at ASU also tries to host at least one group event per month, like movie nights, bowling or the Valentine’s Day dance, she said.

Underneath the heart-shaped balloons, pink streamers and miniature disco balls in the basement of the Memorial Union, festivities at this year’s Valentine’s Day dance included a full Italian-style meal catered by Mark Vanek, head chef of Hillel Jewish Center. There were also arts and crafts activities, like making Valentine’s cards, for buddies who preferred not to boogie or were unable.

Johnson, a psychology sophomore, said the larger events encourage new college students to become involved and gives the mentally handicapped adults something exciting to attend outside of their normal interactions.

“There may not be a whole lot of stuff going on in their life, or [they may not] have a lot of human contact, so this is a chance to get them out to meet new people,” she said. “The [Valentine’s Day] dance is irrelevant of the holiday; it’s more of a chance to get together and hang out again.”

Pansy Yip, membership coordinator for Best Buddies at ASU, said much of the narrow-minded stigma surrounding the mentally handicapped would disappear if more ASU students made an effort to form friendships with them.

“Sometimes college kids think that just being around [disabled persons] is a faux pas,” said Yip, a sociology sophomore who has volunteered with the group since her first semester at ASU. “It’s not like we’re scared — it’s just that we really aren’t willing to get involved.”

She recalled a fraternity that volunteered at last year’s Valentine’s Day dance that was initially anxious about working with the disabled people, but ended up enjoying the event as much as the buddies.

“It was cute — my buddy thought one of the frat guys was cute, and said she wanted to ask him to dance,” Yip said. “So I told him, and they started dancing. He was totally fine with it.”

As students and their buddies ate and danced the afternoon away, Devorce cranked up “Brick House” by The Commodores.

Johnson said the love in the air at the Valentine’s Day dance illustrated how Best Buddies at ASU is a great opportunity for everyone who’s involved. The buddies form rewarding friendships, and the college students form new ideas about the community around them.

“People with disabilities are not lepers or people who you need to avoid,” Johnson said. “Both people end up benefitting from the friendship — it’s not just a one-way thing.”

Reach the reporter at trabens@asu.edu.