To us, UK junior Jenna Lyon may seem like any other college student.
But to the students in her dance class, she’s known as Miss Jenna
She’s wonderful and she’s my best teacher
Anna and her classmates are part of a unique program created by Jenna
4 years ago when I was in high school I started the “A chance to dance” program that offers
dance to children with special needs of all ages and every disability
The dedicated dancers, and their parents relish the experience
It makes me cry sometimes whenever I talk about it because you know you just don’t
see that so often.
And she’s just taken so much time out of her schedule to dance and to love dance, don’t
you all love dance now?
I hate leaving the dance class, I could stay there for hours and hours and I would really
love it
Even though it is just a class for kids with special needs, I try and teach it like a class
for any other student, teaching them the same things and pushing them like I would any other
student and I feel like that really does reflect on the kids
A reflection you can clearly see when the students are on stage
Lots of people throughout my life in school have told me that you can’t do things or
that I’m not good enough.
Jenna makes me feel like I can do those things
That enthusiasm is partly why the elementary education major said she had to continue the
class, even with the demands of college
I just knew that I couldn’t stop providing the class to the kids just with how much it
meant to them and then also how much it meant to me
To give of her time, to give of....we haven’t had to pay for anything, we’ve not had to
pay for class
Families with special needs children have the additional medical bills and their kids
are in therapy and even just finding child care for them can sometimes be more difficult
and expensive and so I wanted every student who could possible participate in the program
be able to and money not be an issue
And Jenna’s done this, she’s been doing this for 4 years.
For them to stay consistent with it is just amazing
I think sometimes when kids are labeled with special needs, some people just feel like
they don’t have the abilities and capabilities that other kids do, but really they just have
all the same capabilities and it might just take them a little extra time and practice
but really if you just work on things with them and you break things down they can really
achieve anything.
Jenna’s taught me just working with me just couple of times and its like dang I really
can do this I never thought I’d be able to do that
It’s really nice to hear the different things, not only has the class just helped them improve
their dance skills but it’s helped them with their communication skills outside of
the program and just their social skills
Just to see her grow over time, the first few years she sometimes she would sit down,
sometimes she would sit back and watch, but now she joins right in she does everything
so we’re so proud of her.
Overall I think it gives them confidence, do you have confidence?
Yes you do.
And it just really helps with their motor skills
Yet it seems Jenna’s real impact isn’t something you can necessarily measure
Jenna’s truly shown me what I want to do with my life when I get older and I really
want to be just like Jenna.
Maybe not necessarily through dance but with my dedication and my compassion, I always
like helping those who are more disabled than I am
But in the end, Jenna says she’s the one who’s learned the most valuable lesson of
all
They’ve just taught me true meaning of friendship, everyone loves each other in that class, everyone
is friends there’s no competition, and they’ve just taught me that if you just put your heart
and mind to anything that you can really achieve anything that you want to and just seeing
the struggles that they face and how they just come in and work hard and want to dance
just like everyone else just shows that there’s no reason why someone can’t do anything!