About Dahna…

Dahna Bender, born Grazia Massari October 1966, in a house on Via La Tina Street by midwives in Roma, Italy, was adopted by Louise and Harry Bender of Massapequa, Long Island, NY from Angel Guardian Home in Brooklyn, NY and Italian Immigration on March 16th, 1967.  Brought over by nuns on an airplane with other adopted children she was the only baby in the last group of children for adoption to the USA. Italy, from then on, stopped all international adoptions. Louise Agnes Denaro spent her life as an orphan at Angel Guardian Home until the age of 12 when she was taken in by a foster family and treated as an orphan. Harry Valentine Bender, legally blind from birth, found Louise on a blind date. He married Louise and started Bender Insurance with her as his right hand. When unable to conceive biological children, they went back to the same orphanage Louise was from, which was converted into an Adoption Agency.  Despite Harry’s handicap, they were granted a baby from Brooklyn, her sister Lisa, then Dahna herself three years later. With a blessed childhood filled with song, dance and study, Dahna went on to succeed in business. Keeping her passion for music, she became one of the Anthem singers for the NHL’s NY Islanders in 1991.

Just recently, when deciding to create a Christmas CD with her old time friends and colleagues Jimmy Greco and Russ Desalvo (of AirgoMusic the music production company), did it become apparent that the most important thing to Dahna was the true way her voice and music was to be used in this world: through Acts of Kindness and Giving. That was the birth of Giving of the Heart. The beginning of a life of destiny. Grazia Massari, from Italy, became Dahna Bender.