For the Dahers, PD is Family

Spend any time with them and you know Moe and Dima Daher are people of action. So it’s no surprise that they were eager to give to the CHARGING forward campaign in their first year as PD parents. They didn’t need to wait to see how daughter Elaina liked Kindergarten at her new school. In fact, they didn’t hesitate at all.  Their approach, as Dima explained it, was this:

   “We have confidence in the school. We have confidence in Glyn, the leadership, the teachers. We’re not waiting on anything. We trust. We invest in people and we want to contribute. We want to be part of it.”

Those feelings led the Dahers to make an outright leadership-level contribution, giving the school complete discretion in how to allocate the funds across the campaign’s three priorities.

“If we didn’t have that feeling, we wouldn’t have done it,” added Moe.

They steadfastly believe in the global nature of the school, from early world languages and exposure to different cultures, to the diversity of the student body, and even the willingness of the school to have their Muslim faith acknowledged in the classroom.

“We were both born and raised in Jordan,” explained Moe. “So the globalism was very important to us. Our kids – we don’t want them feeling like they don’t belong…[that] they’re not from around here. We wanted our kids to be in a place that we feel they’re going to be part of the community.”

They also like the positive energy surrounding the school, particularly the balance between academic rigor and creative play. “The culture here is great,” said Moe. “We just love it.”

While the list of what’s generated those positive feelings about Providence Day is long, for Moe and Dima, everything connects back to community.

“I think our love for the school and the community of the school comes a lot from the global education factor,” said Dima. The TK-12 curricular approach to developing students to be empathetic global citizens has tremendous rewards for both the individual and the collective.

“You learn to respect other people that are different than you. You learn to be more open-minded. Not everybody has to be like you. You don’t have to agree with everybody.  You are your own person, you stand out for what you are, and others stand out for what they are. That’s the way to build a good community.”

In their view, that sense of belonging can also be enhanced by the CHARGING forward campaign, giving families an opportunity to connect through a shared sense of purpose and common goal. Moe likens it to ‘putting down roots’ and Dima sees a more personal aspect.

“For our daughter, this is her home,” Dima said. “This is where she’s going to be comfortable, and be herself, and be proud of what she is and not have to hide it or not talk about it….We don’t have family here in Charlotte. [For our kids] Providence Day is going to be their family.”

Moe and Dima are the proud parents of Elaina ‘27 and Adam, a future Charger.