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"I want to walk a mile in your shoes / I want to walk a mile in your shoes / I want to know what you think and what you feel / so I really want to walk a mile in your shoes."
These words, and this song, are perhaps Vitamin L's most popular song to date. At any of the fifty or so concerts Vitamin L performs in a year, this seems to be the one that most children know and love. In fact, Stonehedge Elementary in Camillus, NY decided to have the song "Walk a Mile" be their school wide theme for an entire year.
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Vitamin L at Ithaca Fest 2011
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Learning to walk a mile in another person's shoes epitomizes the purpose of Vitamin L Project, which is "to spread love and goodwill through music...to uplift and inspire young people and encourage positive character development through music." Still going strong in its twenty-third year, the Vitamin L Project has given more than 930 performances. Most of these are at elementary schools, but the Vitamin L Project also performs at festivals, such as the annual Ithaca Festival in June and the Village at Ithaca's Lift Every Voice concert in October.
The Vitamin L Project also gives leadership and performing opportunities to 65-80 youth chorus members each year. These young performers generally start in middle school and often continue on through high school and sometimes even college. Jan Nigro, the songwriter, is the only adult performer with the group, and he takes nine performers with him to each elementary school performance. The group performs mostly in the Northeast region, but has performed as far away as Atlanta and southern California.
Janice Nigro, the Executive Director
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Teamwork!
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(and Jan's wife), says about the music, "One thing that's very important is that the songs Vitamin L sings are relevant topics for each new generation: kindness, gratitude, empathy, respect, and tolerance. When we get to schools we witness the kids really responding to these ideas. The topics tap into these kids' inner integrity."
An added benefit to the topics covered in the songs is that the performers are young adults who are on stage embodying the messages in the songs as they perform. "The young kids watching the show see that it can be cool to be kind; to aspire to be a person of integrity," says Janice. "A lot of times society deals with problems after they happen. Vitamin L provides pro-active positive youth development through music."
Read the whole article here.
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The Center for Transformative Action (CTA) helps to create communities that work for everyone. We do this by providing fiscal sponsorship to innovative social change agents in New York State, as well as financial, human resources, and grants management services. CTA is an educational non-profit organization affiliated with Cornell University.
