From Our Hearts To Your Toes Donates Dance Costumes to Dance Students In Need

While cleaning out a closet, Long Island sisters Lisa and Allison Milberg were confronted with what to do about the racks of dance costumes they’d accumulated over the years.

“We were deciding what to do with them, whether to throw them out or give them to Goodwill, and I looked online and nowhere would take them,” Allison recalled.

This led the sisters to create From Our Hearts to Your Toes, an organization that donates gently used dance costumes and shoes to dance programs in need. To date, the organization has collected and distributed over 3,000 shoes and costumes to dance students in need.

Allison, who has been dancing for 15 years, worked as an assistant dance teacher at Dix Hills’ JAM Dance and Fitness Center for six years. The Half Hollow Hills High School graduate started collecting costumes while working at JAM and watched the service grow from collecting costumes from individuals to receiving donations from organizations like Dance Impressions, Dance Odyssey, Danceworks and Spotlight Dance Academy, among others.

“It’s so nice to give back to people who enjoy dance as much as me and my sister do,” she said. “It’s so easy to just give what you already have and it makes kids so happy.

Donations have benefitted Boys & Girls Clubs in Glen Cove, Bellport and Oyster Bay as well as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Fresh Air Fund, and the Camden girls dance team, among other places.

“The best part is definitely the kids that receive the costumes,” Allison said. “Their faces are just priceless and that makes us so excited to push for more.”

To get involved or to donate gently used dance costumes, visit the From Our Hearts to Your Toes Facebook page or email hearttotoes@gmail.com.