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Putting the fun back in fundraising, SwingShift and the Stars Dance-off For Charity provides unequalled philanthropic opportunity by creating a partnership between local charities and the community through high quality entertainment and friendly competition.
After years of attending and performing at charitable events, Judy Harrison, lead singer of SwingShift and founder of High Impact Productions, Inc. knew that a fresh concept was required to re-invigorate the non-profit fundraising scene in our community; a friendly competition that would again attract people to participate with and donate to local organizations that desperately need our help to continue to help those in need.
Adding a feel-good twist to the wildly popular "Dancing with the Stars" model, she set the stage for SwingShift and the Stars, a dynamic, inventive, dance off to benefit area non-profits. Six local celebrities paired with six local dance instructors have pledged to sacrifice sore feet and hours of practice time, to entertain an audience and encourage vote donations.
In a series of four live performances the audience will have the privilege of voting for their favorite couple for a minimum donation of $5 to go towards one of the six charities selected by the competing couples. Voting donation envelopes will be given to each attendee as they enter the event. There will be a spot to mark which dance couple they are voting for and charity to which they are donating.
At the live performances, voters are encouraged to donate as much as they would like to the charity of their choice, $5 is only a minimum starting point. Although you can only vote for your favorite couple at one of the five live events, donations will also be accepted online, from this website, as well as at all performances.
Dancers will also be performing before a panel of four judges. The scores of the judges will be tabulated and announced at the end of each event. The cumulative audience vote from the four performances will not be announced until the final performance, when these totals will be combined with the judge's scores to determine the winning couple! The competition winners and the charity donation grand totals will be announced at the Grand Finale Charity Celebration and Award Ceremony on December 16th, 2011 at the City Opera House.
 In an effort to recognize the hard work of our current dance couples and in a continuing effort to provide an opportunity for our previous dancers to invest in our amazing community charities, Judy & Brad Harrison committed a base donation of $1000 to establish an "Alumni Award". This award will be presented to the charity of the dance couple earning the highest judges scores combined with the most audience votes at each competitive event. Mike and Denise Busley graciously accepted the challenge and have offered to match this award donation. Since this offer of participation remains open to our alumni dancers throughout the season, we can only hope that this award amount continues to grow and that the charities will greatly benefit from this well deserved addition.
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