Vermont Public is independent, community-supported media, serving Vermont with trusted, relevant and essential information. We share stories that bring people together, from every corner of our region. New to Vermont Public? Start here.

© 2024 Vermont Public | 365 Troy Ave. Colchester, VT 05446

Public Files:
WVTI · WOXM · WVBA · WVNK · WVTQ · WVTX
WVPR · WRVT · WOXR · WNCH · WVPA
WVPS · WVXR · WETK · WVTB · WVER
WVER-FM · WVLR-FM · WBTN-FM

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@vermontpublic.org or call 802-655-9451.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Coronavirus Shut Down Her Business In The Spring. Now She Dances In A T. Rex Costume

People in inflatable chicken, unicorn, T. rex, mouse and alien costumes dance outside a building
Elodie Reed
/
VPR File
The volunteer group The Inflatables dance in inflatable costumes outside Elderwood long-term care facility in Burlington on Sunday, Dec. 13. The group formed after its leader, Jenny Rooke, received a T. rex costume from her friend Regina Patterson.

What would you do if your business plummeted in the middle of a pandemic? This is a very real scenario for a number of Vermonters, and when it happened to Burlington resident Jenny Rooke, she decided to dance — in an inflatable T. rex costume.

Jenny Rooke co-owns Rookie’s Root Beer with her husband, Dave. Since 2005, the pair have been making soda in their converted one-car garage and selling it to around 100 Vermont bars and restaurants. But when Gov. Phil Scott issued his Stay Home, Stay Safe order in March, their business, Rooke says, was decimated.

“Ninety percent of our business is draft sales online, so when the restaurants shut down, we shut down,” she said. “Then when a lot of the things came up for the CARES Act, when that came through from the government, we didn’t qualify, because we needed to have at least one employee, and we’re both owners.”

More from VPR: Poll: Vermonters 'Concerned' As Small Businesses Grapple With Pandemic

Rooke, 46, teaches some Zumba as a side hustle, though the governor’s order meant she couldn’t do that for awhile, either. Around the time that normal life stopped, fellow Zumba instructor and friend Regina Patterson says she was late-night shopping on Amazon when a suggested item popped up: an inflatable costume in the shape of a tan and very top-heavy T. rex.

Patterson explains that she and Rooke have an inside joke about the song “Walk The Dinosaur.” Naturally, she decided to buy the $60 dinosaur suit for her friend.

“I put it in my checkout box and had it sent to her as just sort of a little funny pick-me-up,” Patterson said.

A woman in a dinosaur suit holding up a
Credit Courtesy
Jenny Rooke in her T. rex costume.

Rooke received the package around April Fools’ Day. When she and her husband opened it, Rooke said they were “belly-laughing.” Right away, Rooke decided to don the 7-foot T. rex — she’s 4’11”, by the way.

“I said, ‘I’m going for a walk,’” Rooke said. “And so I got my sparkly paper together, and I made a sign, and it said, ‘Be kind, and stay safe.’ And I just marched around the New North End every day for about three weeks.”

Rooke says she logged 60 miles on her Fitbit during those three weeks in the costume.

She started delivering root beer while wearing the suit, dropping off 32-ounce soda cans to local homes and then starting driveway dance parties with customers, their kids and neighbors who wandered over. This eventually grabbed the attention of severallocal TV stations.

Rooke and her costume also made regular stops outside Birchwood Terrace — a nursing home in the New North End. In the spring, Birchwood suffered a COVID-19 outbreak that killed 22 residents. One woman in the dementia unit, Rooke says, knew exactly what to do whenever the T. rex showed up outside the window.

“That woman, dancing with me, even though she had dementia, like that brought her so much happiness,” Rooke said. “And she would tap the window and have me lower my nose and she kisses my nose, like that’s her thing… and this guy took a little video clip of it, and he sent it to me, and I’m like, ‘This is everything.’”

More from VPR: 'Losing Sleep, Worrying': COVID-19 Sweeps Through Two Vermont Nursing Homes

As the pandemic continued, so did Rooke. Patterson joined in after she recovered from a bout with COVID-19, wearing a bright pink, rainbow unicorn costume. And some of Rooke’s Zumba students got in on the act.

Which is how on a recent Sunday, a chicken, a unicorn, a cow, a hippo in a tutu, a polar bear in a scarf, an alien, a mouse, a shark, Sully from Monster’s Inc., plus the T. rex ended up outside of Elderwood, the long-term care facility in Burlington.

See the full dancing crew in the video below:

The Inflatables at Elderwood on Dec. 13 (2)

The group calls itself "The Inflatables." Carting a portable loudspeaker from window to window, they found a few residents to dance with, and staff too. For an hour, they shimmied and conga-ed and even twerked a little.

See the The Inflatables do a little twerking in the video below:

The Inflatables at Elderwood on Dec. 13 (1)

The visit to Elderwood was especially poignant for Rooke, since a friend’s stepfather recently died there after contracting COVID-19, and the friend, who lives out of state, couldn’t travel to Vermont. The facility has been the hardest-hitby the recent surge, and the day The Inflatables danced there, the Health Department had recorded 115 cases and 12 deaths.

“Having to not be able to go home to love and support the ones that we love the most, you know, is hard,” Rooke said. “So we’re all just trying to pick up the pieces and to help everybody out by acting silly, and making [my friend] smile, which did make her smile, because it was something we could do for her, for him, to remember him.”

It’s been about nine months since Rooke first donned the T. rex suit. People keep requesting The Inflatables — for birthdays, weddings, graduations — and Rooke says they keep showing up.

“In the beginning, clearly, it was always just a joke, and we’re like, this can’t keep going, but it is,” she said. “We’re just out to be happy, to spread joy, and like, we’ll keep doing that. I can’t believe we're gonna have to get snowshoes for these suits.”

People in unicorn, shark, mouse, alien, cow and polar bear inflatable costumes next to a sign reading covid-19 staff parking only
Credit Elodie Reed / VPR
/
VPR
The Inflatables dance in the COVID-19 parking lot outside the Elderwood facility in Burlington on Sunday, Dec. 13.

In the meantime, Rookie’s continues to offer driveway deliveries-slash-dance parties, and they’re hoping the business can hold on through the end of the pandemic.

When this is all eventually over, Rooke says she wants to throw a great big root beer float party.

Have questions, comments or tips?Send us a message or tweet digital producer Elodie Reed@elodie_reed.

We've closed our comments. Read about ways toget in touch here.

Elodie is a reporter and producer for Vermont Public. She previously worked as a multimedia journalist at the Concord Monitor, the St. Albans Messenger and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, and she's freelanced for The Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, the Berkshire Eagle and the Bennington Banner. In 2019, she earned her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Southern New Hampshire University.
Latest Stories