With the closure of schools across the province, Dance Images by BJ will unfortunately not be able to host their annual Dance for Hunger weekend at Peacock Auditorium on Mar. 22 — but it isn’t the end for the fundraiser.
Dance For Hunger is the studio’s annual showcase, which doubles as a fundraiser for the Moose Jaw & District Food Bank.
Dance Images dancers put together a show and ask attendees to bring a non-perishable food item with them when they attend, to donate to the Food Bank.
Last year, the fundraiser collected nearly 2,000 pounds of food to donate, and while the province’s precautionary measures have certainly hampered the studio’s usual method of supporting the food bank, Dance Images isn’t giving up.
Because the showcase isn’t moving forward as planned, assistant director Shauna Bzdel and the team at Dance Images are brainstorming other options for their annual food drive.
“At this point in time, we're just working on coming up with some creative solutions for our studio and our dancers to do some online and virtual things,” said Bzdel. “We are not calling it quits on the food drive.”
The studio is working on revamping the format of the fundraiser, to still be able to support the food bank as they do every year.
“Just because the event and the location have been cancelled, it's not something that we are taking off the table,” said Bzdel. “We definitely are still planning on moving forward in the future and still doing something for the food bank, so we can make that nice big contribution to them.”
For Dance Images, being able to make such a large donation to the food bank each year is important, as is the chance for the dancers to perform on stage before they head into their competition season.
“We’re definitely disappointed for our dancers, not having that opportunity to take part and perform at that venue,” said Bzdel. “But for now, it's a matter of reimagining how we’re going to do this.”
Dance Images will decide on an alternate method of fundraising, which they will announce in the future once details are more concrete.
