Participating in Dance for Kindness for the fourth year did not disappoint. It has become part of the culture at our school. It is such a community effort that goes into this event. I am encouraged by the students, teachers, and families that find this event so important. I especially loved the song this year. I loved how clear the words were, so fun to sing and dance to!
Special Thanks
NomNom for the healthy breakfast snack
Ole for the after dance snacks, continuous support and enthusiasm
Julie Garner for securing dance locations
Joscelyn Benitez for organization and promotion
Cory Haley for leading dance practices
Amber Miller for leading dance practices
This year is our 5th participation. We have more and more participants each year in schools, and more and more schools participating. Kids are particularly touched by this special day, workshops and dance.
Special Thanks
Schools Les Lilas, Gabriel Macé, Deux Canons and all the students, teachers and directors.
Special thanks to Christel Vitry, Sandrine Damour, Fabienne Parmentier, Maeva and Leila Akbaraly, Laurent Davy, Badi Tshenkenke
Family: Husband David, Kids Aïna and Akim, Baby Lyam
Sponsors
Mike Illg and the City of Homer Recreation Program
Videographers: Jake Kitzmiller & Anoop Nair
Photographers: Cathy Harder, Amy Russell, Seth Spencer & Christina Whiting
Katie Jo Gamble, Falcom Greear, Barbara Kaun, Karen Murdock,cDavid Northup, Catriona Reynolds, Maria SantaLucia
What an incredible event for our school. Coming together as a community and seeing the smiles and kindness rippling through everyone there gave me chills! Dance for Kindness is a natural cure for making people happier in their lives!
Special Thanks
Thank you to all of our Dance Captains in 4th, 5th and 6th Grade. Thank you to our Student Council teachers for helping to coordinate practices, set-up and the script for our assembly. A special thank you to our music teacher, Mrs. O’Connor for teaching the dance to the whole school.
Sponsors
Thank you to our school PTO the Richboro School Association for providing our dance captains with t-shirts for the event!
This was my 2nd year as a DFK Group Leader at my school! Last year, we had a larger group of students, but it wasn’t as organized because of the sheer number of students and teachers involved. We didn’t have the space for all of us to practice together except for one time before the event. This year, I offered DFK as an after-school activity. We were able to conduct two fundraisers (where we tripled our donation total from last year) and much more awareness was brought to LifeVest Inside and performing acts of kindness for others. We also held a party for the cleaning staff at the school to thank them for their hard work. Finally, our entire school wore orange on World Kindness Day to bring awareness to how important it is to lead a life of kindness. Overall, it was an amazing experience for teachers, students, and parents. Looking forward to DFK 2020!
Special Thanks
Heather Clayton
Fatma Chabanova
Ashique Mehaboob
Stefanie Nitta
Daniele Keith
Mike Hopaluk
John O’Neill
Ralph Russell
DFK2019 was my 4th year as a Group Leader and I can say every year has gotten bigger and better! The smiles, the connections, the laughter, and the joy are what makes the event for me. I love seeing the cross-section of folks who choose to participate each year. It is the largest kindness event our city hosts and it helped us become the 1st World Kindness City in the nation. The best part of this year was that a friend who attended Salisbury’s event for 3 years chose to host DFK2019 in her town and she had a very rewarding event. Kindness is definitely contagious. I can sum up my experience in three words: Rewarding. Heart-filling. Everlasting.
Special Thanks
Salisbury University Event Technical Team
PAC 14
Mayor Jacob Day
City of Salisbury
Salisbury Arts and Entertainment District
Wicomico County Public Schools
Emcee Paul Butler
Supt. Donna Hanlin
President of Salisbury University, Dr. Charles Wight
Vizion Creative.tv
Being a Group Leader is always exhilarating. My favorite part of organising this event is that it brings the whole community together to support one goal – kindness. I still learnt a lot this second time round; meeting people and spreading the word about Life Vest Inside, pushing my limits and stepping out of my comfort zone to fundraise and role modeling kindness acts in my community DAILY. I would encourage anyone interested to apply for the group leader position, the satisfaction of leading such and event and learning from it, while being fully supported by other Group Leaders and Orly is well worth it.
Special Thanks
Special Thanks to:
Debby Perry for bringing DFK back for the third year.
Office staff for the behind the scenes work.
Teachers for supporting the students.
Kindness Community Event Team
Maya Barak, Lorena Mendez, Melody Fettig and Priya Bhogaonker
Thank you to the lead dancers, you ROCK!
Zoe, Imogen, Caelyn, Sohum, Becket, Lily, Ronak, Gracie, Celie and Sivan
Flag Bearers
Mohit and Jonny
Stage/Arena Set-Up by Mr. Miguel
Performing Arts Teacher: Jennifer Walsh
Music Editor: Karan
Videographer/Video Editor: James Kim
Drone Footage: Jaxson and Shawn Oles
Photographer: Jessica Gatewood
Photographer: Thuan Pham https://lifeandphamilyphotography.smugmug.com/
Being a Group Leader this year was a new challenge as we partnered with a neighboring school and hosted them here for the day. So we added 70 new friends to our dance and it was truly inspiring to see it all come together. To see that little ripple start right here and know that it is traveling out to the world. I look forward to making more connections to show our kids that KINDNESS is a uniting force across the globe!
This was my fifth DFK and every year I love it more. Teaching middle school has reminded me how much we need kindness be at the forefront of what we do. As a Group Leader, it is my job to embody and model kindness for these tweens to see what it looks like in action. What I love about this event is how the whole process is made easy for GL, we are given all the tools we need to succeed and our job is to simply execute our tasks. I am forever grateful DFK exists, and I will continue signing up my school for as long as LVI hosts it!
Special Thanks
Special thanks to Dr. Lori Richardson Garcia who was a source of support and inspiration; thank you to Maddie and Erin Stanley-Rainbow for their love of DFK and willingness to be the dance leaders.
This was actually the first time I had the opportunity to play the role of a team leader. I have learned a lot of interesting lessons, all of which are interwoven experiences. One thing I am sure is that it will be better for the next year. Thanks all supportive people from organization who willing help, showed me step by step how to go ahead. And the most important thing is you guys inspired me by your enthusiasm, kindness. Much love!
Special Thanks
Special Thanks I would love to give my friend, Ms. Bona Lee, who highly introduced me to apply as the role of Group Leader this years. I absolutely could not do well without volunteers helps, who were along with me through the event : Ms. Duong, Ms Thu, Ms. Hai Anh,…and do many others ,even the ones i have never met…But on that day, they sacrified their time,their work gathering together and ….We made the day of Dance For Kindness in Hai Phong.
Thanks to Ms Orly ,who gave me a chance to be a leader even it run out of time. Thanks your kindness, support team to have me step by step in the process of Group leader .
