By London Foster
Staff Writer
Mira Costa’s new philanthropic club, Unity Dance, will soon begin teaching underprivileged kids various styles of dance.
Starting September 15th, once a week, Unity Dance will go to St. Anthony of Padua School to teach children how to dance. These kids cannot afford dance classes at a regular dance studio and are relying on Unity Dance to teach them.
“The main goal for this club is to teach underprivileged kids how to dance and how to express themselves through dancing,” Vice-President Catelyn DiLeva said. “We teach all different types of dance so we hope every kid can find some type of dance through which they can express themselves.”
In addition to teaching underprivileged kids to dance, they are currently setting fundraising goals for the dance program so they are able to buy the kids proper dance shoes and attire.
“I get excited for club meetings because everyone who is in the club is super enthusiastic and it will be great to hear the ideas they have and just be with everyone who wants to help out in any way,” DiLeva said.
Two months ago, club President Parnia Mazhar thought of the idea for Unity Dance. In June, DiLeva and Mazhar began to plan the whole project by calling schools to see who was interested. They contacted St. Anthony of Padua and made the scheduling and teaching arrangements.
“Parnia really wanted to start a club and talked to me about it the last year… we thought it would be fun to combine dance and community service to create a club,” DiLeva said. “We want to teach kids who don’t have the opportunity to do extracurricular activities how to dance.”
Unity Dance plans to teach younger kids during the club’s beginning stages. According to Mazhar, once club participants become more experienced in teaching they will move onto older ages.
“Through this club we hope to not only teach students how to dance, but we also want to help them realize that dance is a great outlet for them when they feel like they want to express themselves and their emotions,” Mazhar said.
Dance experience is not required to be a member of Unity Dance. There are other tasks to work on besides going to the school and teaching, such as fundraising. They have set up a FundMe account and plan to have bake sales in order to raise more money.
“I love contributing to the club by attending meetings and helping fundraise for dance shoes and costumes for the kids,” club member Shelby Friedman said. “I think Unity Dance is an excellent club and anybody who is interested in helping out should join. There is a place for everybody even if you don’t dance.”
The club encourages students to join if they’re looking for a way to give back to the community. Unity Dance also allows members to gain more experience in dance and teaching.
“I’ve been dancing for about 11 years and this year I had to cut back on some of my dance classes because of all of my school work and extracurriculars,” Mazhar said. “I really wanted to find a way to be able to continue my dance as much as possible while giving others the opportunity to dance as well.”
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