Dance, auction boost Stratham playground plan
Monday, April 21, 2008
Foster’s (N.H.) Daily Democrat
PORTSMOUTH — Stratham residents and town officials brought out Afro wigs, fake handlebar mustaches, pastel dresses and knee-length stockings for the second Dancing with the Stratham Stars fundraiser Saturday night in the Sheraton Harborside hotel ballroom.
The event, put on by the Stratham Playground Committee and Stratham Recreation Commission, featured disco dancing, a silent auction and a raffle, with proceeds going to the second phase of construction for a children's playground at Stevens Park.
Claire Ellis, a mother of four and a member of the playground committee, led the ceremonies Saturday night. She said the group was hoping to raise $15,000 to cover the costs of adding a large playstructure maze to the existing playground.
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Saturday's disco-themed event featured a collaborative "hustle" dance by town officials, including Recreation Department Director Tara Barker, the Rev. David Dodge of the Stratham Community Center, Assistant Fire Chief David Emanuel and Selectmen Kirk Scammon. Auction items on display included jewelry, handbags, sports memorabilia, artwork by local artists, pottery and gift certificates to local restaurants.
I was one of the members of the commitee who held this " Dancing with the Stars" event in Portsmouth NH. This was the second year we did this and it was a big success. We raised more money the first year - aprox $15,000 and this year we made aprox $10,000. We had our dancers rehearse with a dance company 2-3 times before the event and then they performed a group dance at the event (swing dancing the first year and the "hustle" this year). They all felt too intimidated to go on by themselves so we did it as a group. It was alittle hard at the begining to convince our "star dancers" to participate but they had sucha great time that they almost all participated the second year.
Most of the money came from a silent auction so it took a lot of work to get hundreds of donations from area businesses but we had a lot of good items - Here are tips for some good donations - Disney can give park passes (with at least 2-3 months advance request), some cruise lines give cruises to organizations in their ports of call, and sports teams were pretty good at donating tickets and signed sports memorabilia. We also found a guy who collects and sells sports memorabilia - he sets a minimum bid that he keeps for himself and everything we made above that was ours to keep.
We raised the last portion of our $85,000 playground project with this event and we will be building on June 14th so we are all VERY excited!!!
We are considering doing a similar type of event at my school. I wanted to know more information about how your organized the dancing with the stars portion of your fundraiser.
We asked local town officials, school principal, well-known business owners, librarian etc... to attend a certain number of dance classes before the event. For the first year, I think they attended 3-4 classes since the routine was more complex to learn (swing dance). the second year they had to learn the "Hustle" so that was easier. We asked a local dance school to do the training and they, in turn, had a chance to put their own dancers at the show for publicity for themselves.
We chose to do a group dance because the dancers were too intimidated to go alone and we also chose to not have it as a "competition" with judges but I think that would be fun too - I guess it depends on your group of dancers and how they would respond to that.
Some of them were a little hesitant to put in so much time (going to classes) but all of them ended up having a really good time. The first year, we offered them a plaque to thank them and the second year, we put in engraved bricks at the playground thanking the dancers.
The more "dancers" you have, the more people you can draw to the event since all the dancers will have friends and family come and watch them.