Staff Writer
The “Help a Heart” Sadie Hawkins dance,
open to all classes, will be held on Nov. 22 from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. in the auxiliary
gym at Apex High School.
The dance is being sponsored by juniors John
Mitchell III, Michael DeSantis, and senior Grant Smith, as their “Learn and
Earn Project” through DECA, a business oriented club at school. Mitchell said, “The magnitude of this is pretty large. Some people do papers and other things,
but this is taking it to the next level.”“We decided that the way we were going to raise money was through a school dance and donate all the profits to a charity of our choice,” said Smith.
The charity of choice has yet to be announced. “We are supposedly
donating to UNC Heart and Vascular, but I don’t want to say that officially
until I see a physical contract,” commented Smith.
The interest in donating the money to heart research came from DeSantis. “I had a passion for the cause because my father died of a heart attack when I was in eighth grade,” said DeSantis. “Just last year in Mr. Ferguson’s class, I did a presentation about my father and how I would like to do a charity event in his favor.”
Although the idea originally came from DeSantis, the other students express a desire to make a difference. “It’s not about the project, or the grade, it’s about helping our charity the most,” said Mitchell.
The dance has not been an easy one to plan. “It was just a lot of things thrown at you and a lot of responsibility that you don’t really think about; you’re just, like, trying to plan a dance,” said Mitchell. “There’s so many things involved. There’s a whole contract. We tried to work with Preston. We talked to a ton of DJs; just so much stuff that’s been so expensive.”
Mitchell is taking this dance as a learning experience. “Not everything is handed to you and things aren’t as easy as they seem. That’s probably the biggest lesson,” Mitchell admits. “We tried to be like ‘well we’re high school students, can you help us out?’ and it’s really not that easy. Just because you ask, doesn’t mean they’re going to give it to you.”
The boy’s choice of Sadie Hawkins was a strategic one. “We believed that girls would be more wanting to go to this. If they did the asking, we would have a larger show out,” said Smith. He added, “We wanted to make it different than prom to add a little more ‘uniqueness’ to the dance.”
Smith gave some advice to girls who are scared to ask a guy to the dance. “My advice would be just go for it,” said Smith. “Take use of the opportunity that’s at hand. People have been wanting this dance for years.”
Mitchell’s advice to everyone is, “just because you don’t have a date, doesn’t mean you can’t go to the dance.”
Students are asked to mention their Sadie Hawkins proposals on twitter at @AHSfalldance.
Tickets will be sold for $20 starting Wednesday,
at the earliest, after school and during lunch in the main lobby.
