November 16, 2012

Having never performed in front of a large crowd, the room where our SWAN students waited before going on stage was a mix of eagerness and nervousness. Their first community service performance was to provide dinner music for Justice and Mercy’s annual banquet. The children, their teachers and Executive Director, Diana Vuolo, began with the soothing chords of Pachelbel’s Canon D. This was followed by the sweet sound of girls singing “Mary Did You Know?” which stirred the audience’s hearts and prepared them for a moving solo of Alicia Keys’ “No One”. The children were all smiles as they came off the stage. They were excited about what they had just accomplished. The Executive Director of The Mix at Arbor Place, Janice Thomas, said, “The girls I drove back to The Mix were like different girls. They could not stop singing.”