Community members prepared to ‘sing’ their hearts our for Literacy Council fundraiser
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
You have to be willing to have fun and maybe be a little crazy. Those were the prerequisites when the Florence Area Literacy Council began recruiting participants for its second annual Lip Sync Battle fundraiser. The battle will take place June 8 at the SiMT.
Christina Lawson, Executive Director of the Florence Area Literacy Council, said that after holding their signature event, A Novel Event, for a decade, she and her board began looking for a new fundraising idea.
“After you have done it for a long time, fundraisers kind of live their life,” Lawson said. “We wanted to do something fun, interesting and different that nobody else was really doing. That is the hard part about our community: there are so many fundraisers and they are all for wonderful causes. We have so many groups in this community who are working hard and doing so many great things; it is hard to compete.”
Lawson said that the idea for the battle came from a rather unusual source.
“Honestly, the idea came from my 14-year-old son,” Lawson said. “We love watching the tv show and he said ‘Mama, you should make that a fundraiser’ and I thought that was a great idea but I didn’t know how. We worked it out on paper and found a way to make it happen and here we are.”
Lawson said that her board was actively involved in recruiting participants.
“Our board met and everybody brought suggestions to the table, people that they know in the community that they thought might do it,” Lawson said. “The number one thing is, who has a bold enough personality and would get onstage and commit to being crazy and potentially, purposefully, making a fool of themselves. We make a long list, go through and pair it down and we start asking.”
Michael Smith, a member of the Corporate Sales Department at Darlington Raceway, is one of the people who will be battling it out. He said that he was on board from the first time he heard about the event.
“It sounded like a creative and fun event that benefitted a great cause for our community,” Smith said. “A friend of mine, Kirby Anderson, told me about his involvement with Florence Literacy and about the event. He didn’t have to ask me, I immediately was enthused at the chance to participate.”
Smith said that YouTube has been his go-to for learning to lip sync to his chosen song.
“I already know what I’m going to wear and have the song memorized,” Smith said. “I’m not nervous at all. It is a different challenge being a solo performer when the majority are in a group, but I actually used to be the mascot for Charlotte Motor Speedway, Emcee for a minor league baseball team with the on-field promotions years ago and earlier this year, I was the Emcee for my Rotary Club Auction in Darlington, so I have no problem speaking or lip syncing in front of a large crowd. You have to embrace the moment and if the audience sees that you are having fun, it becomes infectious and at the end of the day, this event is about fun and helping a great cause.”
The money raised from the Lip Sync Battle event will go toward the council’s mission: educating adults in the Pee Dee.
“The money will go toward our adult literacy program, which is basically what we do,” Lawson said. “This money will help us provide a program coordinator who is basically our teacher and works with our students, it provides educational materials; it helps us keep our doors open. We raise 50 percent of our operating budget through fundraisers and grants, through community support. This is a huge, huge part of that effort.”
Tickets for the event are $50 a person and include dinner: a German Milli Vanilli inspired meal catered by Adam Silverman of Tracks Café in Florence. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Florence Area Literacy Council at 843-667-1908 or online at https://florenceliteracy.wixsite.com/novel-event/attend