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12/04/2019 07:30 AMEach year, Kids for Kids, Dancing for Life, Inc., hosts the annual Makin’ It Special Christmas Show, collecting unwrapped toys for children in need in the area. Since the show started just a few years after the organization was founded in 1994, Lisa Gilmore has had a hand in making it special.
And for her, the most special part of the show is seeing the generosity of others.
“[The best part] is watching the people come into the theater and watching the toy pile grow and grow and grow,” she says. “It starts with a small stack and then as everybody comes in and starts to get seated, it’s this monstrous display of amazing charity.”
This year, the annual Kids for Kids Makin’ It Special Christmas Show will be held at 3 p.m. in the auditorium at North Haven High School, 12 Elm Street, North Haven, on Saturday, Dec. 7. Admission is a new, unwrapped toy.
Makin’ It Special’s lineup is quite long this year, with 30 acts from local dance schools showing their best routines. Unlike other group performances, it isn’t a competition, just holiday themed performances.
The toys will be collected by New Haven Marine Corps Cadets and then distributed to children in the area. She is excited to see the donations again, last year, Gilmore said that they collected a total of 1200 toys to be donated.
Lisa, a paralegal who danced competitively while growing up in North Haven, began volunteering for Kids for Kids when it was created out of the dance studio she attended, The Dancer’s Studio. She was 14 at the time.
They started putting on dance competitions and giving the proceeds away to children’s charities and children and families in need in the area, Lisa explains.
Now in its 27th season, Lisa says that Kids for Kids, Dancing for Life, Inc., has raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million to donate to charities for children in total.
“Most of our funds are raised from our competition in April,” she says. “From those proceeds, we make the bulk of our donations over the competition weekend, but we also set aside funds in our account to make other donations as the requests come in during the year.”
Those funds that are set aside are referred to as the “Kommunity Chest.”
When she finished her undergraduate degree at Syracuse University, Lisa was asked to take on a bigger role as a board member. Now, she serves as the secretary of Kids for Kids, which has moved out of the studio and is an independent organization that is run entirely by volunteers.
“This organization is much more than myself,” she says. “The people that run it and our kid members are the heart of the organization.”
This year, Lisa six-year-old daughter, Claire, will be helping out at the show too.
“She’s six, but understands what we’re doing,” Lisa says. “She helps collect the toys and bag the toys. Seeing that is always heartwarming for me.”
This year, Claire will be one of the dancers performing in the show herself, for the first time. Claire dances at the same studio her mom danced at growing up, The Dancer’s Studio, which is now located in Northford.
Claire’s dance group number “is closing the show, and they are helping to usher Santa on stage,” Lisa notes.
Other members of the family, including Lisa’s sisters and their children, also help out at the show. Gilmore said she’s excited that her daughter has taken an interest in helping out.
“It’s important to me she recognizes what she has and pays it forward,” Lisa says.
For her own part, Lisa puts her decades-long involvement in the show in context.
“I am but a small part of a much bigger organization,” Lisa says. “I consider myself just a volunteer. We have 18 other board members who work just as hard and stay just as busy throughout the year.”
For more information on Kids for Kids, Dancing for Life, Inc., visit kfkdancingforlife.org.