Being a Group Leader for Dance for Kindness was an amazing experience. It was wonderful to bring people in my community together to dance, laugh, love and come together for one common goal…to spread kindness! This experience brought me out of my comfort zone by taking on a leadership role within my community and learn to delegate and ask others for help. The Freeze and Flash Mob were so fun and I had tears in my eyes and was so proud of the participants. I want to continue to be “the change I wish to see in the world” and encourage everyone to do the same!
Special Thanks
Kabir Bhatia- Local DJ on local NPR station (Kent State University) donated his time and equipment to play the music.
City of Hudson for allowing me to use our Green space for the event
City Councilwoman, Beth Bigham for coming and spreading the word and supporting this event.
Amy Miklos from Ohio Organics and Nature store for her support.
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!
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!
Dance For Kindness has been very very meaningful to me since its inception. I have always wanted to participate but there wasn’t a Group Leader in Augusta, Georgia where I live. Last year I decided to become a Group Leader for the Boys and Girls Club. The kids had so much fun! This year I was the Group Leader at The Jessye Norman School of the Arts. The dancers were a complete inspiration to me. In addition, we are planning to invite other schools to participate next year.
Special Thanks
Gary Dennis, Executive Director of the Jessye Norman School of the Arts
Carmen Moses
Mary Reed, Dance Instructor for the Jessye Norman School of the Arts
This was my first year to take part in DFK and serve as a Group Leader. I am a school counselor and kindness is our theme this year so when I learned about DFK, I decided to involve my 5th grade students and their teachers. Getting people on board was challenging but with the help of a couple of dedicated teachers, it came together. It was amazing to see my kids and teachers dance for such a great cause. The school librarian came to me and said that some of the kids were singing and dancing while looking for books. That touched my heart. I am so proud of my students and teachers. I hope to do this again next year.
