If you missed Dancing with the Stars of Forbes, you missed out on a fantastic night of dancing, laughing and overwhelming community spirit.
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The crowd of 363 people at the Dancing with the Stars of Forbes event on Saturday night managed to raise approximately $34,000 for CanAssist, more than double the original target.
Organisers of the evening, Cassandra Tyack and Terese Gunn were blown away by the generosity of the crowd and the night in general.
“At first we thought we might make $15,000, then we thought we might hit $20,000 and then a couple of weeks out from the event we said we may even make $25,000,” Cassandra said. “For us to make another $7,000 over that is incredible, it’s very exciting.”
The evening has been described by all who attended as a spectacular event.
Each of the 18 dancers (one couple had to pull out prior to the event) were fantastic and very entertaining with many surprising the crowd with their skill.
In order of their appearance, the dancers were Tammy Stewart and Kerrie Bown with a disco dance, Rachel Wythes and Barry Merritt doing the Paso Doble, Noel Fuge and Denise Jelbart dancing the waltz, Val Taylor and Stephen King showed off their bootscooting with a line dance, Emily Allegri and mayor Phyllis Miller performed a hip hop routine, Susan Earl and Heamani ‘Hair’ Lavaka did a jazz dance ‘Dirty Dancing’ style, Michelle Quigley and Brian King (or their alter-egos Marika and Stavros) performed an Irish dance, Kristy Hartwig and Tim West did a freestyle performance, and finally, Kristen Woods and Dozer O’Malley did a ballet dance.
“They were just brilliant, if it wasn’t for them there wouldn’t have been a show,” Cassandra said.
“They deserve so much credit.
“They even bought all their costumes with their own money, they didn’t ask for anything.”
At the end of all of the dances, each couple was given a bucket and had five minutes to collect as much money as possible with the people’s choice award determined by which couple collected the most money.
One of the most impressive parts of the evening was how much the 18 dancers made in five minutes - an impressive $5,949.
“Isn’t that unbelievable?” Cassandra said.
“In five minutes for just over 300 people to raise that much, that astounded me more than anything.”
Michelle Quigley and Brian King won the People’s Choice award, having collected the most money in their bucket thanks to a hilarious interpretation of an Irish dance.
The overall winners of the evening were Susan Earl and Hair Lavaka who scored the highest points with their Dirty Dancing performance to ‘Time of My Life’ which featured the famous lift.
Judges for the evening were Tim ‘Mouse’ Mackay, Taylah Hemming, John Schrader and Laurel Hull who did a great job of critiquing and scoring each performance.
“Our judges did the most amazing job,” Cassandra said.
“Rowan [Woods] and Alison [Hearn, hosts of the event] were also great.”
The auction was also a huge success with 16 items going for a total of more than $10,000.
Cassandra said the night “far exceeded our expectations”.
“We’ve had nothing but positive comments...everyone had a really good time,” she said.
“My jaw was aching at the end of the night from smiling so much.”
Cassandra and Terese have confirmed they will hold another Dancing with the Stars fundraiser and are currently discussing whether it should be an annual or biannual event. They welcome any community feedback.
Cassandra and Terese would like to thank all their sponsors, the CanAssist committee for helping on the night, the Birthday Girls who helped set up, Forbes Services Memorial Club, Bill Holmes for the music, the judges, Alison and Rowan, the dancers and the crowd.
“The generosity of the crowd absolutely overwhelmed us,” Cassandra said.