Back after a “pandemic pivot” in 2021, Dancing with the Local Stars is set for the 2022 run at ilani Casino Resort in Ridgefield, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.
“It is so exciting to share that Dancing with the Local Stars presented by Banner Bank will be back, live and in person,” said Club President Nelson Holmberg. “With eight wonderful locally well-known leaders stepping into the spotlight next February, we expect to be one of the first large-scale fundraisers to be back in person. That’s ironic, since ‘Dancing’ was the last major in-person fundraiser in 2020 before the Covid shutdown.”
In March 2020, one week before the shutdown due to the emergence of Covid, Dancing with the Local Stars raised more than $42,000 as Cyndi Holloway of Waste Connections won the Grand Championship by raising more than $10,000. The judges determined Azar Ghiasvand of Banner Bank to be the Best Dance winner for her reprisal of the salsa in the closing scene of the movie Dirty Dancing, complete with both lifts.
This year, the cast of Dancing with the Local Stars includes Angie Cherry (Hometown Lenders Mortgage), Kinsey Dhoot (Rotary Club of Three Creeks), Heidi Johnson Bixby (Johnson Bixby & Associates), Sarah Laughlin (Fuel Medical Group), Ryan Montoya (Goosehead Insurance), James Oneil (Columbia Credit Union), Thomas O’Sullivan (ilani Casino Resort) and Nathan Stafford (Banner Bank).
The eight local stars will compete for the Grand Championship with the funds that they will work to raise between now and the event on Feb. 26. Funds raised during the event may also be allocated to the donor’s favorite local stars to help that star win the Mirror Ball Trophy. A panel of four judges will determine the best dancer, in fashion similar to the TV show that inspires the fundraiser.
With the money raised in the 2020 Dancing with the Local Stars, the Three Creeks club was able to award three $7,000 grants – one each to the North County Community Food Bank, Clark County Food Bank and FISH of Vancouver. The club has also made several smaller grants to nonprofits in the community – including the purchase of 50 new stuffed animals to donate to children in the pediatric unit at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center just before Christmas.
Total donations, since the club’s founding in 2016, exceed $80,000.
