CityStep Yale is a group of students who love working…
In partnership with the Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) After School Program, CityStep Yale, a Dwight Hall student-led member group, organizes after-school improv and dance lessons–as well as other activities–for students aged six to 14. Every week, a group of Yale students teach and engage with the children in IRIS’s program.
For Annelise Quintero ’26 and Maddalena Ledezma ’26, Co-Presidents of CityStep, their involvement in the Dwight Hall member group is rooted in their passion for dance.
“Maddalena and I are both in [the Yale dance group] Rhythmic Blue [RB],” Annelise explained. “And Hema [Patel], a senior at the time, was involved with CityStep. She got some RB members involved, and so we went to a class just as RB members. After that, we started becoming more involved as official CityStep members. We started planning lessons and became presidents in the fall of our sophomore year.”
For Maddalena, her favorite moments with CityStep have been not just formal lessons, but moments of spontaneous fun with her students. “During winter break, I was still there, and went to teach dance with Anaya, our curriculum coordinator,” she recalled. “We were in a classroom, and there were musical instruments everywhere. We had ended ten minutes early, and we were just playing musical instruments. That was really fun because I had not played a xylophone in a while.”
Annelise, meanwhile, is grateful for the bond she has formed with her students throughout her time with CityStep. She remembers one moment in particular, which highlighted how close CityStep volunteers become with their students. “We were playing a game that is called family portraits, where you act out a scene by dancing. I was the team leader of one team, and from then on, they started calling me ‘mom’,” she recounted. “Even if they are not in the dance club with us that week…every time we enter the building, students come and give us hugs. And they are begging us to be in Dance Club for that day, because they might be in Science Club or Art Club, but they really, really want to dance.”
While CityStep is a national organization, the Yale chapter is unique in that it partners not with a local public school, but with IRIS, a nonprofit organization that helps integrate refugees and immigrants into the New Haven community. While Annelise and Maddalena emphasize their gratitude for this relationship, recent developments have impeded the work of IRIS. As a part of federal cuts, the organization has lost $4 million in government funding, leading to IRIS closing its New Haven office and laying off a quarter of its staff.
Amidst these struggles, CityStep has organized fundraisers to support IRIS, including a recent bake sale. “We have done a really big push to do fundraising for them,” Annelise explained. “And then, in conversation with our After School Program Director at IRIS, [we have decided] the best thing we can do to support is just continue showing up for the kids and being there to give them a fun club after school.”
Maddalena also emphasized that those in the immediate community are always welcome to volunteer with CityStep, which organizes after-school programming every Thursday. “We are always welcoming new members,” she said. “You do not need to be an experienced dancer. A lot of what CityStep does is movement-based activities and exploring how you can move in a space and how you can collaborate with other people through movement.”
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CityStep Yale’s partnership with IRIS is emblematic of the Engage pillar of Dwight Hall’s Engage, Grow, and Advance program delivery model, forging trusted partnerships with New Haven organizations through community-engaged service.
For those interested in supporting IRIS and CityStep, more information can be found on their Instagram page.
