It’s that time of year again as the Make-A-Wish Foundation gets ready for its annual gala.
Volunteers are preparing to take on the dance floor.
Justin Smith is used to running into danger, fighting fires and responding to bad wrecks across town. His next big challenge is ballroom dancing, something out of his comfort zone.
“I have not done ballroom dancing, specifically. I’ve done some other stuff. This is not anything close to what I expected,” said Smith, who is dancing in this year’s gala.
He is taking on the samba with professional dancer and teacher Rosa Hernandez.
“One thing I noticed about Justin when I came in is the positive energy. He has a lot of it. He’s embracing everything, and we take it step by step. He’s always willing to learn when I throw something new at him,” said Hernandez.
The samba is a Latin dance, based out of Brazil.
“So, there’s a lot of hip motion, which we’re working on,” said Hernandez. “It’s coming along. It’s not something you do every day. So sometimes, it doesn’t want to work and then other times, you feel like you’re over-doing it, and you’re actually not doing it enough.” said Smith.
All this hard work is to help grant wishes to children right here on the South Plains.
“This is something I watched last year. It was something like, ‘I want to do that.’ It was something bigger, and ‘Hey, let’s dance,'” said Smith.
“I think just for Make-A-Wish itself, what it stands for and all the children they help, it’s a given. ‘Absolutely,’ when they asked me to do it again. Then I got to meet my partner, I was like, ‘For sure,'” said Hernandez.
If you’d like to get involved with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, just give them a call at 806-785-9474.