CASSIDY'S COLUMN: Cassidy goes to 3 galas & performs with famous movie stars

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cass Huff is a 13-year old special needs student at Burien’s Sylvester Middle School. She is also our newest columnist… by Cass Huff Hey B-Town Readers!! I feel really bad that I haven’t posted a blog in like three months. I’m so sorry! A lot of stuff has been going on in my life lately. I started eighth grade. Then, in September I had surgery to fix a rod that had eroded. And then in late October we left for London!!! I don’t know if I have talked about my past experiences with galas. But if I have I guess I’m just going to repeat myself. J Of course, you guys know that I go to Camp Korey that is a camp for kids with special needs. A couple of years ago Camp Korey became a Seriousfun camp. Seriousfun is an organization that was originally started by the actor Paul Newman. Paul built hundreds of camps all over the world like the one I go to. Every year Paul wanted to honor these camps. So, he would make a list of all of his camps. Then, he would eliminate some camps off of the list so that there would still be about ten or twelve of them. After that, he would choose a boy and a girl from each camp (you don’t know if you’re chosen). From there, he would basically list the pros and cons of each of the kids and choose one from these ten or twelve camps. He would then notify the families and fly them out on an all-expense paid trip to New York City for a couple of days!! The kids are in rehearsals for seven to nine hours a day! They learn about three songs and then after about three or four days of rehearsals, there is a huge gala where the kids perform in front of thousands of people! The kids perform with legendary stars!! And then after the show, normally there is an after party where the kids can go interact with the audience. Well, since it would have been Paul’s 90th birthday, they didn’t just have one gala. They had three this year! They had one in New York, one in LA, and one in London. I was the girl they chose from Camp Korey and in February I was invited to go to the gala in New York. After that, they invited me back to come to LA in May. And then they chose me to come to London a couple of weeks ago! In the timespan of three galas (about a year) I’ve performed with Danny DeVito, Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Carole King, Renee Zellweger, Jamie Foxx, Annette Benning, and so many more. In London there were kids from Hungary, Israel, Italy, France, Ireland, there were only three of us from the U.S., and there were two kids from the London area. We all grew so close together. It’s incredible to see all of us who may not even speak the same language. But when we all sing, we all know the words in one language. And we all unite through music. Suddenly it doesn’t matter about what the next doctor’s appointment is or when the next surgery is or what’s going on with us. It’s our way to ditch reality and feel the power of music. Thank you so much for reading! And I will try to get better at blogging!! Don’t hold me to that. Thanks again! Over and out! – Cass]]>