(Published by The Yorktown News)
By Brian Marschhauser, The Yorktown News. Photo by Tabitha Pearson Marshall, The Yorktown News.
On Saturday, Feb. 28, Solaris Sports Club in Yorktown Heights hosted a Dance-a-Thon to benefit Support Connection, a not-for-profit organization that provides free support services to people affected by breast and ovarian cancer.
The Dance-a-Thon was organized by two Yorktown High School seniors, Jenna Gammer and Sreeya Sai, as a part of their Civic Internship with Support Connection.
“Our theme is ‘Dancing Throughout the Decades,’ so we’re going to play music from different eras,” Sai said before the event.
Yorktown High School’s Civic Internship program offers students real-world experience by placing them with community agencies and organizations. Sai and Gammer have been interning with Support Connection since September and helped organize the organization’s largest annual event—the Support-a-Walk. Since that time, the students were tasked with organizing a fundraiser of their own.
“Sreeya and I thought a Dance-a-Thon would be the perfect opportunity to really provide a family fun event for all people that would benefit Support Connection,” Gammer said.
Music ranged from the Roaring ‘20s all the way to present day, with Bobby Barden, aka DJ Bobby B, also a student at Yorktown High School, providing the tunes.
“All of the money goes to Support Connection’s support services for women with breast cancer,” Sai said.
Many of their high school friends formed teams, said Gammer, whose mother provided inspiration for the event. “She said that when she was in college, there was a bunch of Dance-a-Thons and everybody really had a great time,” Gammer said. “They were able to raise a lot of money for the school and different charities. We thought this was a great way to get people involved from all ages in Yorktown for such a great cause.”
This is Support Connection’s first Dance-a-Thon, but Gammer and Sai agree it would be great for it to become an annual tradition.
“In order to fund raise for the organization, we wanted to come up with a family friendly event and we thought that dancing would be great to get families together,” Sai said. “We want this to become a very community oriented experience. And we thought that dancing would be a great way to get the community together.”
For both Sai and Gammer, interning with Support Connection is a personal experience. “My grandfather passed away due to lung cancer and when I had the opportunity to have an internship, (YHS teacher Steven Rome) thought that this would be a perfect organization for me to work with, so he recommended that I go interview with them,” Gammer said. “When I went there I saw how dedicated everyone is and it truly made me want to go there and help.”
Sai’s grandmother died of breast cancer when she was only 30 years old. “I specifically chose to intern at Support Connection because cancer has greatly affected my family,” Sai said. “We’re huge supporters of cancer support and cancer research. I just wanted to continue that legacy with my family.”
Through their Civic Internship, Gammer and Sai have been learning the chief skills for event planning from their Support Connection mentors—Executive Director Katherine Quinn, and Administrative and Business Coordinator Christine Katt. “We are so grateful to our young interns for engaging the community in this healthy, fun-filled evening,” Quinn said.
Organizing events is nothing new for Gammer, who is the Senior Class president at YHS. “I really enjoy organizing different fundraisers that really benefit the whole community and with the skills that I’ve learned about event planning from my mentors have really helped me and will definitely help me in the future, as well,” she said.
Sai hopes to enter the medical field in the future and Gammer said she will be a finance major in college. Both hope to give back to Support Connection and cancer research in their own way.
“I’ll always remember opportunities like this and use all that I have learned to help me in the future so I can help additional people,” Gammer said.