So You Think You Can Dance to Support Veterans

 

The 2011 winner of So You Think You Can Dance, Matt Flint, has choreographed a new dance for the veterans charity, FirstLight Trust. And Pimp My Cause volunteer John Griffith has produced a video capturing the new dance and promoting their Dance Day UK fundraiser. The dance video will act as an advertisement for Dance Day UK to inspire groups and communities to host dances on Saturday June 1st to raise money for veterans who are in need of physical, emotional or psychological support.

We caught up with Dorinda Wolfe Murray, one of the Founding Trustees of FirstLight Trust to find out more about the Dance Day UK project and the help that they received. She was eager to thank John for his support, "John was simply amazing. Nothing was too much trouble, although I do think that I tried his patience, particularly when we had to change the music track right after everything was done. And he still did this absolutely charmingly. He is one of the easiest people to work with – he basically sourced the venue, did the shooting, did the editing and worked miracles – on nothing. I often think that the best designers, editors are the people who make something out of nothing...it is really really hard to do something well when there is no funding for it."

Q: How did Firstlight Trust come up with the idea for the Dance Day UK fundraiser?

A: My co-founding trustee Gillian Taylor came up with the idea a couple of years ago – she is a wonderful Occupational Therapist with a background in mental health, fitness, health and dance – she did it in a small way back in 2010, and then kept the idea on hold until now.

Q: What will the money raised from Dance Day UK go to support?

A: It will be used in a number of areas that the FirstLight Trust works in: our ‘Emergency Fund’ for veterans who are homeless or on rough times, to buy them food parcels, a hot meal, and in extreme cases get them a B&B until we can get housing for them. It will help support the Occupational Therapy programme which is a mix of horticulture, beekeeping (we hope); and various other practical courses to enable the veterans to gain a skill – this is a long-term project which enables veterans to dip in and out depending on how they are best able to cope. Many of our veterans have mental health issues and our aim is to support them as best we are able to help them get better and to be able to function back within the community. This is why the support of our local communities is so vital to what we do. It will also assist with funding our support groups, what we want to do in ‘outreach’ – there is so much we need and we have so little to do it with.

Q: Can you give specific examples of groups that will be participating in the fundraiser?

A: That is what is so great about the idea, it can be dance groups (there is one group planning to participate down in Cornwall); schools, fitness classes – I think that Gill has got them training up in Scarborough – tea dances, jive, samba, anything – literally anything. The more people who participate the better – we want lots of uploaded videos on our Facebook page from all over the world!! I love the way that using something like Dance which is so uplifting and as Matt Flint said so ‘good for the soul’ is such a balance to something as sad as homelessness, depression and feeling rejected.

Q: Can you give us suggestions of fun ways to participate in Dance Day UK?

A: I think what would be the greatest of fun would be to get a group together on Saturday and have a massive street party with families doing all sorts of dance. It is such a great way to get together....And to be honest we are so lucky in this country – our armed forces enable us to do this by protecting us in all sorts of different ways, and places. We sometimes forget that.