Today we’d like to introduce you to Ava and Sophia Paley.
Hi Ava and Sophia, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Four years ago, our mother asked us to clean out our closets. They were over-stuffed with dance gear – costumes, old shoes we had grown out of and leotards that were too small. We were left sitting in a volcano of outgrown items. A few hours later we realized we could do something good with all of these things. We came up with the name Donate2Dance and had a friend create a logo (*if you look the heart logo is made with recycled symbolic arrows), We got a big donation bin and asked Gail Crutchfield, the owner of Shuffles NYC, the studio where we dance, if we could put a bin in the lobby and collect donations for two weeks. Well, two weeks later the bin was overflowing onto the floor with costumes, tap shoes, new tights, and leotards. We brought it all home and started to research programs in need. We found Rosie O’Donnell’s Theater Kids, Idina Menzel’s A BroaderWay and public schools around NYC, Queens and New Jersey. A few months later manufacturers like Capezio, PrimaSoft, Bloch, found us and started to donate new products to Donate2Dance. At the same time, we started a GoFundMe to pay for shipping donations which really helped! Programs around the world found us like Ballet Ghana in Accra (who now have over 54 NEW pairs of tap shoes from Capezio! And we teach them tap on Zoom every Saturday as well!). We have provided costumes for a dance school in Malawi called Lilongwe Dance Program also so they could perform their first Nutcracker. Dancers around the country also started to reach out wanting to be Ambassadors and help their local community by collecting dance donations and donating to a local program near them that is in need. To date, four years later we have had over 120 Donate2Dance Ambassadors and most importantly, we have helped over 40,000 dancers around the world. There are dancers who now have dance shoes and costumes and who are tap dancing or performing on stage in new ballet slippers because of Donate2Dance. We started Donate2Dance with one mission: We believe that every dancer deserves the chance to dance.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Nothing is smooth!! We are young and trying to run a charity! We make mistakes every day. We need money to pay for shipping and shipping internationally is really expensive and also a lot of paperwork! We have had a lot of donations come to our apartment and always need help sorting and shipping – thankfully, we have had some friends who volunteer and help us. Our parents are big helps and guide us on steps to take and how to outreach to programs in need and try to make things run smoothly. We have hundreds of emails to answer a week! It’s amazing and alot all at the same time!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We are students. Ava is 17 and Sophia 15. We started this four years ago. We have also been tap dancing since we were each 5 years old. We realized four years ago that we had over-stuffed closets of costumes we only wore once for a recital and shoes that we had grown out of! So we started Donate2Dance.org. We think of ourselves as social entrepreneurs but we are still young and have a lot to learn!
Any big plans?
Ava is going off to college and whatever school she chooses she will be bringing Donate2Dance to the campus. Sophia will continue to run it from home with Shuffles dance friends and Horace Mann School friends as volunteers and Ambassadors. We hope to have bins all over the country and expand our international work.
Contact Info:
- Email: 2dancers@donate2Dance.org
- Website: www.Donate2Dance.org
- Instagram: @Donate2Dance
Image Credits
Marcia Ciriello
Dance Teachers
