Growing up I learned at a very young age how important it was to give back to my community. Whether raising funds, donating goods, or using my own skills to volunteer, service to the community was always a part of my life growing up. Miss Mary is a big believer in using your talents and gifts to better the lives of those around you, and every year Dance Connection renews our commitment to our community with the gift of dance as well as charitable donations.

Dance Connection has partnered with Make A Wish of Suffolk County for almost a decade. Our Competition Team performs for their Annual Holiday Party, they perform at Macy’s for their Annual Believe Day Celebration where a wish is awarded to a local child, and often we have dancers perform a specially choreographed number at their Gala which is in keeping with the theme for the year.

This year we will be bringing back our Making Wishes Grow performance. It’s an evening of entertainment by the Dance Connection Competition Team and other local performers, with special guests from Make A Wish of Suffolk County who speak about their experiences with the Make A Wish program. All net proceeds from the evening go toward granting a local child’s wish. Our first Making Wishes Grow performance helped to send a local child to the premiere of The Cursed Child in London’s West End. We were so proud of how everyone at DC pulled together to support such an amazing cause and we can’t wait for this year’s performance. You can purchase tickets for the January 27th Making Wishes Grow performance here.

Our Competition Team also uses their talents to spread some holiday cheer to our local community by performing in the Town of Islip Holiday Parade, which just happened this past weekend! Our dancers always love seeing the smiling faces along the parade route and passing out treats to the little ones along the parade route.

I’m sure you’ve also seen our Giving Tree in the Lobby of the studio as well. Every year DC adopts some local families in need of some holiday cheer, and sets out to make their wishes come true as well. Each tag is a gift that has been requested by a family in need, and our DC families and staff generously go shopping for the items and return them unwrapped to the collection box. We then wrap all of the gifts and ready them to be distributed to this year’s families. If you would like to help, please feel free to take a tag off of the tree, we greatly appreciate the generosity that the DC families show every year.

At Dance Connection giving back to our community is part of who we are as a studio, and we are so grateful that our students and families are so generous with their time and efforts to assist us in helping others.