For the past few months, our fundraising crew has been working hard at planning a Zumbathon for COTA for Theo Strong. Our family has been friends with Norma Castillo-Razdik, who is an amazing Zumba instructor in the Racine, WI area. When approached about the possibility of doing a fundraiser for COTA in honor of Theo, she could not have been happier to help! She immediately got to work recruiting more instructors in the area to help out, suggested we include a silent auction, and was a nonstop sounding board for Kathy (Theo’s grandma), Nicole (Theo’s aunt), Kelly and RoseAnn (Theo’s great aunts).

Kathy and Roseann helped secure our location, a big shout out to Joellen McLeod for all her and her husband’s help with that as well!  Kathy and Nicole decided now would be a great time to create some COTA for Theo Strong t-shirts, so Nicole went to work on the design and Kathy and Roseann worked on finding a local business that would help us print our creation. Mike Balcer with Sports of All Sorts was able to help us so quickly and donated time and screen printing services to our cause, thank you so much Mike!  Local DJ Santiago Dominguez and his assistant Paula Olson generously donated their services for the day, the musical dream team! So many of our family and friends donated beautiful baskets for the Silent Auction, their time for set up before the event, assistance during the event, and tear down of the event. Local businesses donated snacks and water. When we say this was a community pulling together, we really mean it!

The event itself was more than we could have hoped for!  With over 300 attendees, we met and CRUSHED our goal, and raised $8,100 for COTA for Theo Strong…with more donations coming. We cannot thank the Racine and Zumba Communities enough for making this event such a success!!

Thank you to everyone who had any part of this event, we couldn’t have done it without you!