By Rebecca Lee
Dancing for Donations is a dance studio for kids of all ages and abilities that’s more affordable than the average dance studios.
When Sara Battaglia opened dancing for donations 3 years ago, she didn’t want families to have to choose between paying bills and supporting their child’s passion for dance. She remembers times when she was younger and her mom had to work multiple jobs to support Battaglia’s passion for dance.
After injuring her hip while majoring in dance at The University of South Florida, she could no longer continue her major and decided to take another route and use her gift to give back to the community.
“The original idea was that you would take a dance class in exchange of a donation of some sort. We started with like canned food.” Battaglia said.
Dancing for Donations moved to monetary donations after some time once the canned donations began to take up a lot of space.
Tuition at dancing for donations is $25 a month for one combination class a week. According to Danceparent101, the average amount American dance studios charge for a single 1-hour group class a week is $61 a month.
“Myself and one of my teachers work a lot for free so that’s part of the reason we’re able to keep our tuition so low but we also run off of fundraisers,” Battaglia said. “We do a lot of fundraisers every month and then we get, we do get a little bit of donations.”
Sometimes parents express that they may have to pull their child out of dance due to their finances.
“If a parent comes to us and says, ‘Hey, I’m going to have to pull my kid this month. I really can’t afford it.’ Or “can I pay later?” We’re always very understanding with that too,” Battaglia said. “Or sometimes we’ll just say, ‘You know what, don’t worry about it this month. We really want them to stay in class and we don’t want you to have to stress about it.’”
Dancing for Donations is an inclusive dance studio meaning that the dancers aren’t separated by disability in their classes and all the dancers in their age group dance together no matter their special needs.
“It really changes the views of the typical dancers. They start to really accept the differently abled dancers and even become great friends with them.”
The studio has buddies that can help kids in class.
“They could either be one-on-one or they can be a buddy to the whole class and basically just go around and help the dancers focus, help move an arm or a leg if they need that.”
Dancing for Donations even gives a portion of their donations to Traveling Tutus, another nonprofit. Because Battaglia is passionate about dance, she does what she can to make dance available to all children who share that passion regardless of income or ability.
Find out more about Dancing for Donations on their website: https://www.dancing4donations.org/
