Help me start a dance program at a low-income school. Most of the students here have never had the opportunity or the means to take a dance class. I recently was able to purchase 18 feet of mirrors, but need another 16 feet to finish the wall!
The students here come from a rough area.
Our school is surrounded by a huge fence and we have a police officer on campus at all times. But, the kids are resilient and they still come to school to learn. We are a low-income school, so most of the kids are on the reduced lunch program and have very little money to do anything. Offering dance at the school is, not only giving them the opportunity that lots of other kids regularly have, but also giving them some time to get away from their worries on campus, in the city, and at home. I would love to help continue helping them with this.
My Project
My students need mirrors for a dance room (to lead to the development of a whole dance program!) With the purchase of mirrors, I will be able to give these low-income kids something that they've never had before - a real dance class. This is the first year we have had the class, so they've been all over school with me. We started out dancing on the grass (where I practice with cheer), but found it impossible to do turns, and even had 2 students get stung by bees.
Then we got moved into an old science classroom that was complete with cabinets and 3 sinks. The kids didn't care. They were just so excited to have the opportunity to dance, that they didn't really care where we were. I went out and bought a few dance posters to spruce it up, but need mirrors to make it complete. With almost 50 kids in the class, we are a FULL class, but they're loving it. With such a full class, it makes it hard for all the class to watch me teach. A full wall of mirrors would help this.
I have been the cheer coach here for 5 years, and we have zero funding from the school.
Everything we raise is from fundraisers and parent donations. Unfortunately my new dance class is the same way. I have been dancing for 20 years and am LOVING sharing my love of dance with the kids at the school. I just wish that they were able to get the whole dance-studio feeling. I've got the kids. I've got the room. I've got the music. I've got the dance.....now all I need are the mirrors!
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