The Family Health Center will host its fourth annual Dancing with the Vincennes Stars fundraiser on Saturday, August 23, at the Highland Woods Community Center. The event supports the Wabash Valley Friendship Clubhouse, a program that provides a safe, welcoming space for people living with serious mental illness.
Cher Wehrman, Family Health Center CEO, said the clubhouse offers both social and educational opportunities. “It’s a program that we use to help people who have had a serious mental illness diagnosis — a place to go where they feel safe and comfortable and accepted, because all of the members are like one another and they understand the struggles that each of them have,” Wehrman said. “It’s a place where they can go and have fun, hang out, play games, but there’s also important educational components that go along with that.”
The evening begins at 6 p.m. with a social hour, followed by a catered meal at 7 p.m. Competitors will perform two 90-second dance routines, with the audience voting for the grand champion. Votes cost $1 each.
Early online voting is also available for the People’s Choice Award, allowing supporters from outside the area to participate. Six teams — four individuals and two couples — are competing this year.
This years dancers are Megan Davis, an Ambulatory Clinical Care Pharmacist at Good Samaritan; Kaylee Decker, owner of Flourish Integrative Health; Audra Marcy of Burkhart Insurance; and Lara Dawson, Director of Architecture at Taber Owens Construction Group in Washington.
Competing as couples are Jared and Margaret Hatteberg, who work in IT at Good Samaritan and for Vincennes Community Schools respectively, and Nick and Jessica Echavarria, longtime supporters of the event through their daughters’ participation in the host dance studio. Wehrman said the competitors have been training for months, with some adding extra practice sessions, tumbling moves, and detailed costume designs to impress the audience
More information on tickets, sponsorship tables, and early votes are available at www.yourfhc.org.
