Dancing to stand with the cancer warriors
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 9, 2015 1:46 PM
Full Size
News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Jordan Ferraro as The Little Leaf is spun around by Levi Hewitt as The Brown Bear during the Cures for the Colors fundraiser at Walnut Creek Country Club Saturday night. This year's event featured a four-act play based on the book "The Leaf That Would Not Change."
Full Size
News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
A group of dancers led by Carl and Joy Williams perform the "Dr. Atkins Shuffle" during the Cures for the Colors fundraiser.
Walnut Creek Country Club saw a book come alive over the weekend, as Charles Zwerling tweaked something his niece had written to turn it into a play that teaches people about the struggles of cancer.
More than 250 people gathered at Walnut Creek Country Club Saturday night to watch the play, "The Leaf That Would Not Change," which Zwerling's niece, Whitney Bitner, had written.
Ms. Bitner is a teacher in Pennsylvania, and originally wrote the story for her class to teach them about being yourself and practicing acceptance.
"It's a very interesting story," said Zwerling, the producer. "I read it and fell in love with it. It has a great message about self-esteem and how to handle peer pressure. So I took it and tweaked it a bit, and turned it into this."
The format for this year's Cures for the Colors event was different from previous years. In the past, it has been a Dancing with the Stars style competition where people vote for their favorite dancing team with donations.
Saturday night's event saw no dance competition, instead opting for the play format due to the desire to do something different and to keep the event fresh, Zwerling said.
"The fact that we're helping a cancer cause is fantastic," said master of ceremonies and Saturday night's storyteller Jimmy Martin. "Everybody in this has been super. It's been a lot of fun to do it. Dr. Z (Zwerling) sings in a group ensemble with me and asked me to do it, and of course I agreed."
Tickets were $75, and more than 250 were sold for the event. There were also donations being collected throughout the night.
Teresa Hoyt, with Southeastern Medical Oncology Center, said as of Monday morning she is still collecting money from the event and does not yet have a firm total for how much was raised for the cancer charity, which is run through SMOC.
All of the money raised Saturday night will go toward helping cancer patients.
"It helps tremendously," Ms. Hoyt said. "It helps the patients get gas to come back and forth from their appointments, it helps them get groceries and 100 percent of it goes to the patients to help them with any costs they might have."