How My Trip to Africa Turned Into the First Toes to Talent Donation

This winter break I traveled to Africa and It was definitely one of the best vacations Iv’e ever been on due to how many different parts of Africa we saw and how every single one was so different from the other. My favorite place was Ethiopia. It’s where my mom grew up and it was the most cultural out of all of them. The first thing I noticed was that we were the only tourist really because it was a very local area we were touring. They had a dance studio there called Beyond Dance and that area was also very poor. I decided this would be a great place for toes to talent to make their first donation. 

Toes to Talent is a donation I started to donate dance shoes to poorer countries, or just to kids who don’t have dance shoes. You can dance as freely as you want, but things like turning or especially tap are better done with shoes. When we arrived at the dance studio, I noticed it was a lot smaller than ours and everyone was barefoot. When I donated the shoes, everyone was so grateful! That’s really what made it worth it for me, seeing the smile on the studio owners face while opening up the bag of dance shoes. To collect the dance shoes, I put a sign and box in my studio prior to my trip so people could bring in their own dance shoes. I decided that wasn’t enough so I went to my old dance teacher at school and she gave me two big boxes full of shoes. It was hard to carry all of those shoes all the way to Africa but it was definitely worth it, and was a great first donation for my charity Toes to Talent. I don’t think I would have been able to do it without all the help from my dance teachers and dance friends so I’m very grateful for their help and I’m sure the kids who dance at Beyond Dance Studio are as well.

I hope this is just the first chapter for toes to talent because I would definitely do it again because it taught me to be grateful and allowed me to give back to others. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip, and it was so cool to see what a dance studio in Ethiopia looks like as well. Overall, I’m entirely grateful to be able to deliver the dance shoes all the way in Africa, it still doesn’t snt even seem real to me!