Founder Fatherhood Files: The Daughter Dance We Built Ourselves

I’ve been taking my daughter to a daddy-daughter dance in the city for years. It’s one of her favorite things we do together. But we always had to drive into the city for it.

We’re about 45 minutes south of the city. Everything was up north. There wasn’t anything in our community.

So with some friends, we put one on ourselves.

The space

A friend had recently renovated a space in a nearby town. We worked hard through one nonprofit, volunteers and through partners to make it accessible for everybody in the community.

We called it Daughters Dance, intentionally. So that any girl could bring whatever adult they wanted to spend time with. We wanted to ensure no one was excluded. 

The night

The girls had such a great time. People in the community who didn’t normally cross paths got to meet. My daughter, who’s 14 now, got to dance with girls she’s known since they were little.

I have pictures of her at these dances going back to 2018. Watching some of those same little girls in our community grow up alongside her was really moving.

After

Afterwards, the daughters were already asking their dads when it was happening again.

That was the magic.

The fathers were grateful, and most of them said the same thing we hear at every cityHUNT:

“I didn’t know how good this was going to be.”

There’s something special about a father, or whoever that adult is, focused for a few hours in a really fun space with a child, dressing up, doing the whole experience together.

The work

It was hard to pull off. People are busy and don’t immediately get it. It took real work through the nonprofit and partners to fill the room.

But I had read that sometimes people give gifts instead of getting gifts for their birthday. The same logic applies here. You build the thing you wish to exist, and you give it to the community.

I’m hoping to do it annually now. My role as a father keeps shifting, and showing up like this is part of how I want to keep showing up. It also reminded me why shared experiences matter so much; they’re what people actually remember.

If you want to see what happens when the focus is just connection and play, that’s what we do at cityHUNT too. That’s always been the point.