This month, the New Canaan YMCA’s Inclusion & Support Needs (YSN) participants proudly performed a Planet Parade play through its Rhythm Hearts Theater program. The performance featured a planet parade event, known as a celestial event, where multiple planets become visible in a line across the night sky, in an exciting play enjoyed by participants’ parents and caregivers and the Y’s youth after-school participants and staff.
Led by Music Therapist Matt Hennessey, the Y’s Rhythm Hearts Theater program is specially designed for teens and young adults with varying abilities and incorporates music, art, and theater by adapting stories from a variety of sources including short stories, classic rhymes, movies, Disney, Broadway, cartoons, and more into plays. The program has been offered at the Y for the past eight years through its YSN initiative, providing opportunities for participants with varying abilities to gain peer socialization, promote self-expression, and build confidence in an inclusive environment.
The Y’s longstanding YSN initiative serves over 130 kids, teens, and adults with varying abilities each year, providing many programs and activities designed to enrich and support participants in a welcoming and inclusive environment. Through the initiative, the Y offers programs, summer camps, support services, special events, volunteer opportunities, and employment, ensuring that individuals of all abilities can flourish by building confidence, making friends, and developing independence.
To learn more about the Y’s Inclusion & Support Needs programming, visit www.newcanaanymca.org.
