One of my Favorite Moments

One of my favorite moments on tour this year was the day we did our humanitarian work (July 16th). Part of what we do as Clog America, besides representing the United States of America at international folk dance festivals, is we select a humanitarian project for a country we visit. This year we actually did projects in both Greece and Turkey, but in Turkey we got to interact much more with the children we were helping.

We showed up in costume at a school for children with disabilities and there was this huge sign welcoming us! That was pretty cool.

We went inside the school to set up all our stuff. We had SO many things to give away. 

This is one of the girls from the school. She was super sweet! We performed a few dances and then had the kids come up and dance with us. It's so wonderful to me how responsive children are to dance. We couldn't speak their language and they might not have understood us even if we did. But through dance we could connect with them. 

This young man was SO into the performance! I brought him up to dance and Thomas put his chaps and cowboy hat on him. He had such a blast being a cowboy! If I remember correctly, I talked briefly to his mother afterward, and she said that his name means "peace." I wish I had written down his name at the time, but that's the best I can do. He certainly had such a wonderful, loving spirit. It feels great making a difference for a child, even if it's just for a few moments of smiles. 

In the afternoon, we had the chance to do another visit for humanitarian, this time to a school for Armenian children with disabilities. Only some of us went, so we got more interaction with the kids. Two of them were so hilarious! They were in love with Kyle and Alex, our videographers, because they had facial hair (the two boys did too). There was also a sweet little boy, maybe 2 years old, who was so fun to play with.

Hooray for love and kids!