A Florida Ballet School Is Helping Puerto Rican Dancers in Need—and It Needs Your Support

October 16, 2017

Almost a month out, Puerto Rico continues to suffer the devastating aftereffects of Hurricane Maria. Many of the island’s residents still lack power, clean water, and safe housing. Ballet classes? For Puerto Rican dance students, they must feel like an impossible luxury.

But a dance studio in Florida is working to allow a group of young Puerto Ricans to continue their training. And it needs your help.

As reported by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Sarasota and Puerto Rico Dance Together is a fundraising initiative by the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School. Its goal is to bring six Puerto Rican dance students, all of whom participated in the school’s summer intensive this year, back to Sarasota, where they’ll live and study for free.

SCBS is providing scholarships for the dancers’ training; the money from the fundraiser will go toward their housing, food, and other living expenses.

“This is not about me or my school, it’s about people pulling together to do a good deed,” Ariel Serrano, director of SCBS, told the Herald-Tribune. “I look at the news and I think, ‘What can we do other than lament?’ Some people put their hands on their heads, other people put their hands in their pockets. I believe we all can do a little more.”

Read the full story
, and then visit the SCBS website to donate to the cause.