Schools have been hosting father-daughter dances for years.
The only thing is, not all daughters have fathers.
So, Officer Nick Harvey volunteered to step-in and escort a child without a dad to the annual father-daughter dance.
“I’ve been wanting to go for a long time, but my dad couldn’t take me,” second-grader Avey Cox told CBS.
That’s because he passed away a few months prior.
“They were very close,” Avey’s mom, Angelia Bernard, said. “Avey wanted to go to the dance but didn’t have anyone to take her.”
Before asking Avey to the dance, Harvey made sure to get mom’s permission.
“I reached out to the mother, the last thing I wanted was to get rejected by a second-grader, and then the next day I formally asked if she’d be my date to the daddy/daughter dance,” Harvey told 5 News Online.
The ask was a little bit awkward.
“She was sitting at the lunch table and I walked up and said, ‘Hey, did you talk to your mom?’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’ And I’m like, ‘Would you like to be my date for the daddy-daughter dance,” and so she’s like ‘yes’ and I was ‘phew,'” Harvey said
Harvey made sure to coordinate his outfit with Avey and got her a corsage.
“I bought a new tie and handkerchief to match Avey’s dress and I ordered a corsage,” Harvey said. “Every time I saw her at school, she’d remind me of how many days it was until the dance.”
They posed for photos and rode in a limo to get pizza before the event. Once they arrived they had a great time on the dance floor.
“I embarrassed myself a little bit…I can’t dance at all,” said Harvey.
But Avey said that her favorite part was “Getting to take pics together and me and him dancing,” Avey said.
Avey said she was very grateful to have been able to go to the dance with Harvey.
“It meant a lot because I got to go and see all my friends there and then I got to go with them and have a lot of fun,” Avey said.
Harvey says he hopes to be able to escort Avey to the father-daughter dance every year from now on.
He made some memories and learned a few lessons of his own during the experience.
“Don’t take anything for granted,” he said. “Enjoy your kids. Appreciate their childhood because they won’t be little for very long.”
His three daughters are already grown.
“I didn’t think I’d ever get to experience it [a father-daughter dance] again,” Harvey told TODAY Parents.
Avey says Harvey has inspired her to want to become a police officer when she grows up. Their story ended up going viral and was viewed more than 30,000 times.
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Source: CBS 17, 5 News Online, TODAY Parents
