A Highland and Scottish dance school in Maple Ridge held a dance-a-thon and raised funds for an Abbotsford family that lost their farm in the recent B.C. floods.
On Dec. 4, the Dunvegan Dance Academy hosted the eight-hour-long dance event and ended up raising more than $8,000.
The floods that ravaged parts of B.C., ended up destroying the Schurmann family farm in Abbotsford and it was important for the dance academy to help this family out, said Sarah Stubley, the director of the academy .
“We are raising funds for our good friends, the Schurmanns, whose Abbotsford dairy farm was flooded last month. Blair and Nicole and their four children are extra special to us as Nicole was a dancer with SFSD in the 90s and early 2000s and remains a close friend of mine,” said Stubley.
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“Even more is coming in! We are still selling raffle tickets to support the Schurmanns and the draw will take place on Dec. 16 at our Christmas Recital,” Stubley said.
The dance academy, which currently has 59 students enrolled aged three through adults, had 40 students come out to the studio to take part in the live performances. The dance-a-thon also had performers send in recorded videos in advance, as well as some attending via Zoom.
“They danced, coloured pictures for a banner we are making to ‘cheer up the cows,’ ate snacks, helped announce our money raised, and one of our dancers even played her fiddle. Overall we had a wonderful time, and the response to the fundraiser was overwhelmingly positive!” she said.
Stubley also reached out to other BC Highland dance schools to see if anyone wanted to take part, and received an overwhelmingly positive response, with video submissions from all across B.C., as well as Manitoba, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Portland, and even a school in Brazil.
“It goes without saying that our dance community is small but mighty, and it is exciting to see everyone coming together to help our wonderful friends. I am grateful for the financial support from our dance community, and proud of the dancers for giving their time to help out our sweet friends,” Stubley said.
Anyone who still wants to donate, can send an etransfer to dairy@dunvegandance.com. The school will also be continuing to raffle off 10 Christmas themed baskets with delivery to anyone in the lower mainland before Christmas. The raffle tickets are for $5 each, and will be sold until the raffle draw at 6 p.m. on Dec. 16.
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Dancers for dairy during the fundraising event. (Sarah Stubley/Special to The News)
Dancers for dairy during the fundraising event. (Sarah Stubley/Special to The News)
