Though New Canaan’s Scarlett MacAllister, 13, was just three weeks old when she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis—a rare, genetic, life-threatening disease that makes it difficult to breathe—the condition has never defined her, according to those who know her best.
Instead, said Sheena DiMatteo, head coach of MacAllister’s company team at New Canaan Dance Academy, the teen not only shines as a highly gifted dancer but also as a support to those around her, exuding qualities of ambition, leadership and generosity.
Scarlett MacAllister performing. Photo courtesy of Jennifer MacAllister
“I feel Scarlett really is a well-rounded person in that she is very ambitious and she does have individual goals that she works very hard to achieve,” DiMatteo told NewCanaanite.com by way of nominating MacAllister for the “Quiet Heroes” series. “But in the same breath, she is the number one supporter of all the dancers around her. She will be the first one to show up at a competition early to make sure that she supports her teammates and doesn’t miss their performance and helps kids go on stage that have never even competed before.”
Those who know MacAllister from the Forest Street studio are “inspired by her talent, dedication, abilities and team spirit,” DiMatteo said.
“She definitely has team spirit, but to know that she is quietly battling something very serious that I don’t think she really speaks about it very much—because she’s a kid, and she just wants to be a normal kid—I think that is what makes her a quiet hero. While many of the other kids are worrying about their day-to-day worries of a normal kid, she does have a very heavy worry and she carries it so well.”
For DiMatteo, it’s “amazing the impact that she has and the strength and the resilience that she has shown at such a young age, to carry and shoulder this very serious diagnosis on one hand, and on the other hand, not let that slow her down.”
Scarlett MacAllister jumping up to hug Sheena DiMatteo, head coach of her dance company at the New Canaan Dance Academy. Photo courtesy of Jennifer MacAllister
“And it hasn’t hindered her to live her life to the fullest the way she wants to,” she added. “But at the same time, she’s so committed to owning it and being who she is. And she wants to inspire other kids who have cystic fibrosis to go after their dreams and to not let the fact that you have CF determine who you’re going to be in life… And it’s important to her to raise money and raise visibility for it. As much as she would obviously love to be cured, I think she’s very mature in the way that she approaches it, to be inspiring for others in the community.”
That inspiration and desire to help will materialize Sunday, rain or shine, during the annual Cystic Fibrosis Foundation “Great Strides” walk at New Canaan High School. There, starting at 9:15 a.m., the NCDA-led “Sunshine for Scarlett” team will seek to top last year’s record-breaking $44,353 to raise awareness about and cure cystic fibrosis —join the team (wear yellow) or donate here.
MacAllister, a student at The Southport School, came to New Canaan as a kindergartner and became a member of the NCDA company in 2019, according to her mom, Jennifer.
L-R: Jennifer MacAllister, her mom Patricia Waters, and her daughter Scarlett MacAllister at a past Great Strides walk for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Photo courtesy of Jennifer MacAllister
“It just took off from there where it was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ ” Jennifer MacAllister said. “I remember her teacher saying when she was in third grade, ‘I really think Scarlett is going to be an amazing role model here someday. She has the ability to come into a room and wants to help everybody. She’s always the kid who has the most energy and she focuses and she’s yet such a great leader.’ ”
It was during the pandemic that things “really clicked” for Scarlett with her dedication to dancing, according to her mom.
“She trains over 20 hours a week,” Jennifer MacAllister said. “It’s crazy. It’s amazing.”
Team Sunshine for Scarlett at the 2023 Great Strides walk at NCHS, a fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Photo courtesy of Jennifer MacAllister
Because she has CF, Scarlett had to respect a 6-foot social distancing rule during COVID-19, so the family put a 12-by-12 studio in the basement, “and I’m not kidding you, that kid just started practicing down there and Zooming and it was a good space for her,” Jennifer MacAllister said.
“And I find that even now, though we’re back in the whole swing of things of being live in studios, she’ll go down and she will have five hours of practice and then you’ll hear Scarlett at 11 o’clock at night down there like practicing something and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, who is she?’ ”
She’s a talented person, among other things.
According to DiMatteo, as a dancer, Scarlett “has always had an incredible amount of enthusiasm and energy and passion towards dance for wanting to be the best she can be.”
“And she had natural talent from day one, but her commitment and dedication to the craft and the technique made her just skyrocket over these past four years,” DiMatteo said. “And especially the past two years, she truly is one of our most elite dancers at the studio whose technique, flexibility, strength, artistry, power, stamina are just off the charts to a point where she really does inspire everyone at the studio—the students from all ages, but even also us, the faculty. As a competition team, we keep growing in competitiveness and in our excellence that we’re able to put out into the world with our students. And she is one of the dancers who was definitely at the forefront of that. I say that she actually is making me a better teacher the more I work with her, because being able to work with someone who’s so talented is requiring me to put in a little extra work on my end to make sure that I’m matching what she’s able to achieve.”
Team Sunshine for Scarlett at the 2023 Great Strides walk at NCHS, a fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Photo courtesy of Jennifer MacAllister
Let alone what she’s been able to achieve via the Sunshine for Scarlett team at the CF Foundation’s Great Strides fundraiser. Since the team launched in 2011, it’s raised $272,644.
The CF walk has inauspicious beginnings for the MacAllister family. Jennifer MacAllister recalled that Scarlett’s first time on the walk was when she was nine months old. The family went to Cove Island Park in Stamford for the walk but found just a handful of people.
“I started crying and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, there’s nobody here,’ ” Jennifer MacAllister recalled.
A friend who was at the walk convinced her to move it to New Canaan, and in the wake of that change “we grew from a team of six people to where we are in the hundreds now,” Jennifer MacAllister said. “Sunshine for Scarlett is actually ranked for one of the biggest walks in the country as far as an individual team is concerned, which is phenomenal.”
And the reason for that growth and success is “because we have an amazing community,” she said.
“My kids are on the baseball teams and on the hockey teams and we talk to the families and the next thing you know, you’ve got all the families coming out to support you,” Jennifer MacAllister said. “The brothers and the sister. It’s just so beautiful. But the dance team got involved because I was like, ‘Why don’t we put on a show? Let’s have the kids do a hip hop number before the walk.”
And they do.
According to DiMatteo, the entire New Canaan Dance Academy Competitive Dance Company will be at NCHS on Sunday for Great Strides, “and the team will be performing one of their hip-hop routines to get the crowd amped up before we do the walk.”
“We have done that for the last three years and we will be doing that again this weekend,” she said.
Great Strides is the CF Foundation’s largest national fundraising event. Each year, about 125,000 people participate in nearly 300 walks nationwide. Since 1989, the CF Foundation has raised more than $700 million. And with those funds, the organization has been able to support real medical and scientific progress, advancing the development of more than one dozen CF treatments, and adding decades of life for those with CF. In fact, the life expectancy of someone born with CF has doubled in the last 30 years.
It’s a stunning achievement for the national organization, and it’s families like the MacAllisters who are leading the way.
Of Scarlett, DiMatteo said, “Everyone who knows her from the studio is so inspired by her talent, dedication, abilities and team spirit. She definitely has team spirit, but to know that she is quietly battling something very serious that I don’t think she really speaks about very much—because she’s a kid, and she just wants to be a normal kid—I think that is what makes her a quiet hero. While many of the other kids are worrying about their day-to-day worries of a normal kid, she does have a very heavy worry and she carries it so well.”
[Editor’s Note: This is a new installment of our periodic “Quiet Heroes” series. We’re accepting nominations for it, see guidelines here and ignore the COVID reference.]