Harcourts Dancing for Hospice raises $130,000 for Rotorua Hospice

Logan Nathan and Nadine Katene during their fast-paced performance. Photo / Andrew Warner

The blood, sweat, and fancy footwork put into Harcourts Dancing for Hospice 2021 has paid off as the total amount raised tallied at a whopping $130,000.

It is Rotorua Community Hospice's biggest annual fundraiser and saw 10 amateur dance couples paired together and taught a dance to perform at a one-night showcase.

Rotorua Community Hospice chief executive Jonathon Hagger said, "This result is fantastic, particularly after cancelling the event in 2020, and all the challenges faced in the past year."

Rotorua Community Hospice gets about 50 per cent of its funding from Lakes District Health Board but still needs to raise $1 million annually to ensure it maintains a high level of support and service for the local community.

The funds raised from Harcourts Dancing for Hospice will go towards the clinical team, who deliver palliative care to those with life-limiting illnesses and support for their whānau.

It will ensure the clinical team has all the tools they need to improve their care in the community.

The crowd at Harcourts Dancing for Hospice2021. Photo / Andrew Warner

Harcourts Dancing for Hospice was a true community event with sponsors who contributed to nearly every aspect, from beverage suppliers, media and marketing, audiovisual, catering, videography, graphic design, the auction and more.

The 20 local dancers each trained about five hours a week for 14 weeks and volunteers contributed more than 1000 volunteer hours to make the event happen.

Jessica Meade, fundraising and marketing manager for Rotorua Community Hospice, said it wasn't a record amount raised from the event, however, it was more than expected as there had been many challenges with suppliers in the past year with the pandemic, so expenses had inevitably increased.

"We expected to raise more than $100,000 so $130,000 is incredible."

She said there were many times during the event set-up when she was blown away by the number of community members involved.

"I think nearly everyone in Rotorua has something to do with this event. We simply could not produce such a successful fundraising event without the help and generosity of our community, we thank them and are truly grateful."

Meade said the success of this year's event and the appetite in the community to support it meant Rotorua Community Hospice was highly motivated to create an even better event in 2022.

She said the fundraising fun for the year hadn't stopped yet though, as in collaboration with Mitre 10 Mega Rotorua there was Ladies Night coming up, and a golf tournament too.

"Of course we will have to wait and see how the alert levels change to confirm these events."