Dancing All Summer for a Great Cause

Generosity was on display Sunday at in Port Washington as girls from the DanceIt! Performance Ensemble at Lake Shore Dance performed for more than 100 people at the 7th annual benefit concert, dinner and silent auction.

The event was sponsored by Lake Shore Dance with proceeds this year going to the local charity Adaptive Scholastic Athletic Programming in Milwaukee County. The goal of ASAP is to bring wheelchair athletics to local schools giving kids with physical disabilities a chance to compete in a wide array of sports.

Efforts from this year’s benefit concert raised more than $7,000 for ASAP, according to organizers.

ASAP was founded by Damian Buchman, who, 20 years ago in middle school, was diagnosed with bone cancer in not one, but both, of his legs. To this day he is the only known survivor of his type of childhood cancer, bilateral osteosarcoma. For more than a decade now, Buchman has devoted his life to honoring not only his survival — but all those who haven’t.

His mission is all about giving back, in what he and other volunteers call "living the dream." When he was contacted by Lake Shore Dance he was overwhelmed by its offer to raise money for his cause.

"A group of girls 12- to 19-year-olds, teenagers, giving up their summer to give back; you don’t see that very often today," Buchman said.

The girls began planning the benefit concert back in June with the help of adults and volunteers from Lake Shore Dance. The girls were not only responsible for learning their dance routines but also running car washes, gathering silent auction items and selling tickets for the performance.  Many of the dancers devoted as much as 200 hours of their summer for this one event, according to organizers.

“It’s amazing to see these young girls devote so much of their time to this wonderful cause,” said Lauralyn Voigt, artistic and event director of the ensemble at Lake Shore Dance. “I saw many of these girls transform right before my eyes this summer. It gives them a sense of purpose and confidence that they will carry with them the rest of their lives."

Sherri Michalowski is a volunteer with Lake Shore Dance and was also one of Buchman’s middle school teachers during the time when he was diagnosed with cancer — back in 1991. She home-schooled Buchman throughout his treatment and said she is extremely proud of what he is doing now to help others with disabilities and the amount of effort her own daughter and others put forth these past few months.

Michalowski’s daughter, Alexandra, performed during Sunday’s benefit concert.

"We have young kids in this society today that don’t get a lot of credit for doing great things, and here you have these young kids who are giving up their whole summer for a charity," Michalowski said.

Buchman will use the money from the charity event to further his mission and the mission of all those helping students with physical disabilities through ASAP. He said he’s never forgotten what it was like to be a teenager with cancer.       

"I love life, ever since that day I was diagnosed with cancer I’ve had the biggest appreciation for what life means," he said.

Lake Shore Dance is now looking ahead to next summer’s benefit concert with the hopes of getting even more participants involved and once again raising money for the lucky charity they decide to sponsor.