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WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – Washington Township High School students danced the night (and day) away for charity on Friday and Saturday, January 13-14, 2017. The WTHS Interact Club, headed by co-advisers April Renzetti and Natalie Taylor, hosted its 14th annual “Monzo Madness,” a daylong Dance-A-Thon to benefit local victims of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).
WTHS students, raising a minimum of $50 to participate, began dancing at 3 p.m. Friday in school’s 11/12 gymnasium and continued until around 8 a.m. Saturday, with only short breaks each hour disrupting the dancing. The event has been organized in memory of former WTHS teacher Tracy Naval’s two sisters, who succumbed to the disease. Naval retired in 2012 and moved to Utah to be with family.
About 350 students registered for the event, and on Friday the Interact Club was able to present a check for $20,000 to the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the ALS Association. All of the monies collected will be distributed to the National ALS Foundation, bringing WTHS’s donation total to more than $250,000 since the fundraiser’s inception. Accepting the check was ALS Association representative Erich Fasnacht, as well as Sophia and Emma Phelan. Sophia, 13, and Emma, 11, shared the story of losing their father, Tom, to ALS to the WTHS students prior to the event.
“Thank you for having this dance, for holding it, for raising money, so that no other person ever has to go through what my dad did,” Sophia Phelan said, gripping the attention of the WTHS students and bringing some of them to tears.
They Danced All Night ...
Washington Township High School Students Raise $20,000 at “Monzo Madness” Dance-a-Thon, Benefiting ALS Research
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – Washington Township High School students danced the night (and day) away for charity on Friday and Saturday, January 13-14, 2017. The WTHS Interact Club, headed by co-advisers April Renzetti and Natalie Taylor, hosted its 14th annual “Monzo Madness,” a daylong Dance-A-Thon to benefit local victims of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).
WTHS students, raising a minimum of $50 to participate, began dancing at 3 p.m. Friday in school’s 11/12 gymnasium and continued until around 8 a.m. Saturday, with only short breaks each hour disrupting the dancing. The event has been organized in memory of former WTHS teacher Tracy Naval’s two sisters, who succumbed to the disease. Naval retired in 2012 and moved to Utah to be with family.
About 350 students registered for the event, and on Friday the Interact Club was able to present a check for $20,000 to the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the ALS Association. All of the monies collected will be distributed to the National ALS Foundation, bringing WTHS’s donation total to more than $250,000 since the fundraiser’s inception. Accepting the check was ALS Association representative Erich Fasnacht, as well as Sophia and Emma Phelan. Sophia, 13, and Emma, 11, shared the story of losing their father, Tom, to ALS to the WTHS students prior to the event.
“Thank you for having this dance, for holding it, for raising money, so that no other person ever has to go through what my dad did,” Sophia Phelan said, gripping the attention of the WTHS students and bringing some of them to tears.
- WTPS -