Students raise $100,000 for Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre

“Opa!” someone from the audience shouts out, earning smiles from the dancers as they remain focused on the intricate footwork of Zorba dance. The Odyssey Dance Troupe is made up of six members dressed in black attire, complete with black shoes and a red waist sash. As they performed hand in hand and arm to arm upstairs at The Mill Tavern, it didn’t matter that the dance floor was barely large enough for their routine. Spectators clapped along to the beat, making the energy in the room a warm contrast to the dark clouds outside splattering raindrops along Manotick Main Street.

Eight hours earlier, Algonquin College event management students, Stefanie Burch, Abby Harrod, Ishita Malhotra, Dana Rojas and Gioia Morin arrived onsite to set up for their fundraising event, Take a Chance on Greece.

Like the rest of their class, the students were raising money for the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre, which offers live-in care and services to those facing addiction and mental health challenges.

While the restaurant typically resembles a classic UK corner pub, it was transformed on Monday, March 24 into what Burch describes as “a little Greek oasis,” dressed up with blue tablecloths and curtains, white pillars and flowers, greenery and a shimmering disco ball.

“So the inspiration, (we were) just kind of brainstorming as a team back at the beginning of the semester and somebody had mentioned Greece as a theme,” said Harrod, the team’s administrative director.

“Me and another one of our members were like, ‘oh, we love Mamma Mia,’ like the movies, so let’s do a combination of those two things and that’s kind of where it came from.”

The Mill Tavern had a special menu for the evening including Greek chickpea soup, a pita board, pork souvlaki wraps and classic Greek salad. They even had a special cocktail called Voulez Vodka.

“It took us eight months to plan the event,” said Rojas, the team’s marketing director. “Also, we had no budget, so we had to send so many emails every week, trying to reach out to everyone that will be able to help.”

All the groups’ emailing was worth it, as they received over 50 donors for their silent auction. The 50/50 draw raised $540, leaving the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre and one lucky winner each with $270.

“We raised about $4,800, which made us really happy because our original goal was $5,000 if we would have had 80 attendees, and we only had 60, but fell $200 short,” said Burch, the team’s venue director.

“So, to me, if you had proportioned the ratio, we surpassed what we thought we were going to make, so I think we did really well there.”

This year, through the seven fundraising events put on by the event management Ontario college graduate certificate program, students raised $14,839.58.

Kim Leavy, the treatment centre’s philanthropy coordinator was present at Take a Chance on Greece to share information with the event’s attendees.

“All the youth that come to us, they get allotted care,” said Leavy. “There’s practitioners, we have addiction therapists, we have addiction counselors, and all of them see the psychiatrist.”

Clients stay at the facility for three months and then continue to receive care after they leave.

“If you ever have a friend in the community that needs help, they don’t have to re-mortgage their house to come to our treatment centre,” said Leavy.

“It’s all covered by OHIP, which a lot of treatment centres in Ontario are not.”

Students in the event management program are sponsoring the classrooms in the treatment centre, which opened its new facility last spring.

These funds mark over $100,000 raised since the program began its partnership with the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre in 2020, according to Professor Sylvia Densmore.

Densmore has been working with the two-term event management graduate certificate program since 2021, when she started out as the program’s coordinator.

“I’ve always taught the event projects course, which is the course where students take what they learn in the theory classes, and they bring it into that course, and then they plan and execute an event for a charitable organization in the community,” said Densmore.

Students are tasked with the assignment in September, and they work throughout the fall and winter terms to prepare for their fundraising events in March. The other challenge: the students receive zero funding.

“They need to go out and find a partner venue, then they work within the community and within our event industry with entertainment, and they have to find entertainers who are willing to donate their time and energy to be at the events,” said Densmore.

Students create themes for their events, and plan any activities, food and decor around the theme. They create a name, a website and market it to the college community and greater Ottawa area.

“Then they have a whole social media campaign, and then they have to sell the tickets, and they also have to acquire numerous donations,” said Densmore.

Rajath Nair, Sourav Thomas and Joel Navarro decided on a Mexican theme for their event, Tacos, Tequila and Trivia, inspired by Navarro’s culture.

Nair and Thomas are from India, but when they found out other groups were incorporating Indian culture into their themes, they considered a different approach.

“We wanted to stand out from the crowd, we wanted to do something different,” said Thomas.

Other groups that included India in their fundraising events were Splash of Joy, a Holi celebration, The Great Indian Wedding Show, with activities involved in traditional Indian weddings, and Cultural Fusion, which incorporated the Philippines, Afghanistan and India in their music, dancing and games.

Tacos, Tequila and Trivia took place at Mexicali Rosa’s on March 21, and featured Mexican food, music, trivia, a silent auction and lotería, often called Mexican bingo.

But like any project, their planning had ups and downs.

“In the beginning, we were supposed to have a Mariachi band for our entertainment,” said Nair. “But unfortunately, in Ottawa, there’s only one Mariachi band and they were booked because it’s a Friday night.”

Luckily, the group stumbled upon the solution to their problem one day at school.

“We were walking around campus, and we found a girl who was singing with a guitar, so we just asked her if she could perform for us,” said Nair. “That’s how we found our entertainer.”

Last fall, groups were formed so every team had at least five members, according to Nair. Unfortunately, two members of his original group left.

“I think that made the professors think that we’d do better than the rest of the teams because communication would be easier among the three of us,” said Nair.

While this may have been true, the team felt they were at a disadvantage when it came to delegating tasks.

Family emergencies and sickness meant that when one person couldn’t complete their task, it was up to the other two to take it on.

“I still remember, it was raining and (Rajath and I) both walked and we got sick,” said Thomas. “I got fever, same time as him, and for one week, I was not able to join the class, and he was the one who was doing all the work.”

Tacos, Tequila and Trivia was a sold-out event, but the group had to work hard for their ticket sales.

Nair, Thomas and Navarro are all international students, who did not have contacts in the area they could reach out to.

“Some of the teams sold out within the first three days because they had their family, their family friends coming in,” said Nair. “We actually walked out, walked around, even around campus and near our house to promote the event.”

In the end, the team sold 35 tickets, earning around $280 through ticket sales. Their 50/50 raffle brought in around $150 for the charity and they charged a $5 fee to play lotería, which Nair says most people participated in.

Overall, the group is happy with how their event turned out.

“It was really fun,” said Nair. “It’s stressful, but you make something out of it at the end. That’s rewarding.”

In her time with the program, Densmore has seen how fast-paced the program is, but she knows students can handle it.

“I always say there’s lots of blood, sweat and tears that go into the creation of these events,” said Densmore.

“It’s not easy, and I love it when they are proud of themselves after, and they have a great sense of accomplishment and we’re very proud of them and what they do, because it’s quite amazing to see what they’re able to pull together.”