Heart BEAT

About Needs & Good Deeds

I t's always great to see high school students use their senior projects to make connections in the community. Especially, when they help younger children in the community learn new skills and gain confidence.

This week, our hats are off to Danica Proctor-DePaulo, an 18-year-old senior at Dayton High School. During January, this veteran member of the Dayton cheer squad held three practices after school for about 25 girls and boys who learned cheers, motions, jumps and a dance and performed these new skills at a varsity basketball game Jan. 26 during halftime.

"I love kids and I thought it would be really fun to have a cheer camp," Proctor- DePaulo said.

Her first idea for her senior project, which seniors must complete and get a passing grade on to graduate, fell through.

And so, in November, Proctor-DePaulo said she decided to hold another mini cheer camp to fulfill her requirements and provide a fun program for little ones.

Proctor-DePaulo had been a member of the cheer squad for three years and the team typically runs a mini cheer camp for local children during football season. The cheer camps raise money that the squad uses to attend cheerleading camp each summer.

Even though Proctor-De- Paulo is not a basketball season cheerleader, her teammates rallied around her and helped run the camp.

She had a lot of work to do before the cheer camp even began. First, she had to get some kids to sign up. She posted fliers and made up permission forms for the parents.

Next, she chose the cheers she would teach and choreographed a dance that had to be approved by her coach AJ Walker.

Walker said Proctor-De- Paulo was a captain of the cheer squad during football season and said sh is a "great dancer."

Proctor-DePaulo came up with games to play during practice to keep mini cheer camp upbeat for the kids.

"We try to make it as fun as possible," Walker said.

The date for the actual camp changed a couple of times, but practices were pinned down and held Jan. 23, 24 and 25 before the final performance on Jan. 26.

Because the elementary school lets kids out earlier than the secondary schools, Proctor-DePaulo said she had to make sure the mini cheer camp kids had a place to go between school and the beginning of practice that week.

Also, she wanted her mini cheerleaders to have a t-shirt they could keep, so she came up with a design and ordered them.

The performance went off without a hitch, but Proctor- DePaulo said the best part of the camp was being role models for the kids.

She said the campers were broken up into groups and each group had a cheer buddy who led them and helped them out.

Now on campus, the bonds made during mini cheer camp show because the younger kids greet the cheerleaders on campus and often do so with a hug, she said.

"They get really excited and really attached (to their buddies)," Proctor-DePaulo said of the mini cheerleaders.

Now that camp is done, Proctor-DePaulo said about $400 made from the camp will pay for next year's group to attend cheer camp. And she only has one thing left to do for her project, which is to present it to a panel so she can graduate.

Through this experience, Proctor-DePaulo said she learned to keep her ducks in a row and she learned what great help her teammates are.

" I learned to be more organized and to be patient with people," she said. "And I probably couldn't have done it without the cheer squad."