One Word, One Billion People: Our Charity Partner’s World Cup Moment
RAD Values Reflected: Leadership • Inclusivity
If you were watching the World Cup Final on July 19th, you might have missed what was happening in RAD’s corner of the world. As the halftime show wound down at MetLife Stadium, in front of a global audience of over a billion people, one word appeared across the field: LOVE. The “O” was planet Earth.
That message came from Love Button Global Movement, the charity partner behind RAD’s Concert of Love and the “Show RAD Your Love” buttons you’ve seen around the studio. For a nonprofit that started with one handmade paper pin, it was a moment worth celebrating with our whole community.
A Billion People, One Word
The first ever FIFA World Cup Final Halftime Show brought together Madonna, Shakira, BTS, and Justin Bieber, produced by FIFA and Global Citizen in support of the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund. As the show closed, LOVE lit up the field, watched by more people than almost any single moment in television history.
It’s not the first time this message has reached a stage that big. Ten years earlier, Love Button’s “Believe in Love” display filled the stands at Super Bowl 50 during Coldplay’s halftime show. Same message, same mission, an even bigger stage this time around.
The Story Behind the Button
Love Button Global Movement started small. Co-founder Dr. Habib Sadeghi wore a handmade paper pin that read “Love” while going through his own experience with cancer, a daily reminder to lead with intention. In 2013, he and Dr. Sherry Sami turned that reminder into an international nonprofit built around one idea: love is something you practice, not just something you feel.
Dr. Sami is someone our RAD family already knows. Through Concert of Love and the Love merch you’ll find at the studio, we’ve had the chance to partner directly with the people behind this movement for years. Watching that partnership reach a billion people is something we don’t take lightly.
Why This Hits Home at RAD
Dance Lessons Are Life Lessons. It’s the phrase we build everything around, and it’s exactly what this moment is about. Every class at RAD is a chance for a dancer to practice showing up for someone else: respecting a teammate, welcoming a new face in the room, believing in something bigger than themselves. That’s Inclusivity. That’s Respect. That’s Empowerment in action, on the floor and off it.
Love Button’s message, that beneath our differences we’re one family, is the same thing we’re teaching every time a dancer holds space for another dancer to shine. It’s a big idea delivered through a small daily habit, which is exactly how we try to teach everything at RAD.
How You Can Carry It Forward
You don’t need a stadium to put this into practice. Grab a Love Button next time you’re at the studio and pass one along to someone who needs the reminder. Love Button’s own programs make it easy to go further too: Wear One, Share One keeps the message moving person to person, Love in Learning is running a back to school drive for students who need supplies, and Baskets of Gratitude brings essentials and comfort to families going through a hard stretch.
A billion people paused to look at one word on a field. What happens next is up to what we do with it: one button, one class, one kind moment at a time.
Want to help carry the message even further? RAD families can support Love Button directly by making a donation or picking up a button of their own to share, every bit keeps it moving.
If that spirit of showing up for each other sounds like something you want for your own family, that’s exactly what we build every class around. Come explore our classes or schedule a trial and see it in person.
