‘Night to remember’: Cartersville Dances With the Stars tops $208000 – Daily Tribune News

By MARIE NESMITH

With a perfect score of 30, Carter and Keri Smith captured the Cartersville Dances With the Stars Judges Choice Award. The competition, which helped raise funds and awareness for Good Neighbor Homeless Shelter and the Cartersville/Bartow County school systems homeless education programs, was presented at the Clarence Brown Conference Center Saturday.

I think we were both in disbelief and utter shock, Mrs. Smith said, about their winning performance. Carter was 100% confident they had made a mistake in asking us to participate. Out of all the many special people around this community, choosing us to participate was truly an honor.

Performed to a 1950s song mix, the Smiths swing medley was choreographed by Milly Crenshaw with Celebrity Ballroom Dance Studio. The Cartersville residents were married in 2014 and share five children ranging in age from 18 to 21.

Carter and I would like to think we are fun, upbeat folks to be around, so to reflect our personalities, we wanted something fun and fast, said Mrs. Smith, a senior account executive at Choice Home Warranty. We then decided on the 50s theme. We contacted a music professional to mix a selection of songs, presented it to Milly and her first response was wow, that has a lot of energy.

So, from there we were up for the challenge of knowing that was her nice way of saying this may be too fast or hard for you to dance to. Carter had no dancing background prior to this event and he says he still does not qualify to claim any. He says, thank God for Milly, our patient, open-minded and uplifting coach. Milly deserves a medal or something.

In its ninth year, Cartersville Dances With the Stars generated a little more than $208,000. In addition to sponsorship packages and ticket sales, the event raised funds by having competitors collect money from the public.

We are absolutely thrilled with how the 2021 Cartersville Dances With the Stars event turned out, Good Neighbor Executive Director Jessica Mitcham said. In a year full of challenges, restrictions in number of attendees, changes in how couples fundraised prior to the event and health precautions, we are enormously thankful for all the hard work our eight couples and their professional coaches put into making this event a huge success. In total, after expenses were paid, we raised just over $208,000 to help support the homeless education programs in our school systems and the Good Neighbor Homeless Shelter.

Formed in 1996, the Good Neighbor has served more than 8,400 people since its inception. In addition to the Transitional Housing program, the nonprofit now features two shelters and a street outreach.

While they are housed, Good Neighbors shelter guests are required to find a job within four weeks, and the shelters staff helps them establish savings, focus on problem-solving skills and chart out future housing options.

Cartersville Dances With the Stars is critical in our work to remind Cartersville and Bartow County of how many children and families rely on the services provided by the schools and Good Neighbor to support struggling children and families, Mitcham said. We are so grateful to all eight couples who really embraced rallying these causes this year, raised funds to support them and danced to entertain our guests.

As Mitcham noted, this years Cartersville Dances With the Stars benefit featured eight married couples. Along with the Smiths, the competition featured Greg and Kim Free, Ahmad and Tamara Hall, Billy and Misty Jones, Bruce and Tracy Mulkey, Jay and Cait Parrozzo, Zach and Alexis Pritchard, and Josh and Lori Shook.

The Pritchards took home the Peoples Choice Award for the most funds raised with nearly $50,000.

Married since 2012, the couple has two children: Avery Claire, 6, and Page, 4. Zach is the owner of Pritchard Injury Firm and Alexis is a school counselor at Cartersville High School.

We are so thrilled to have accomplished exactly what we came to do raise money for the students and families in our community, Mrs. Pritchard said. These programs can't function without the selfless donations from individuals and businesses in our area. And these students can't perform at their best every day if they're hungry or homeless.

Along with learning their dance routine, the couple was busy raising funds in the months leading up to the competition. Their largest benefit, the Home for the Holidays golf tournament, was postponed due to snow and will now be presented March 22.

Zach and I want to bless others as we have been blessed, Mrs. Pritchard said. God wants us to care for others and look after all our neighbors we're hardly scratching the surface, but we had a personal goal to raise as much money as we could.

What's wild is that we found even in this pandemic and time of uncertainty, citizens of Bartow County still wanted to give. We had people call us to ask what they could do above and beyond what was asked of them. We truly believe Cartersville is the best place on Earth.

With a nod to their teenage years, their cha-cha dance to Want to Want Me/I Want to Dance With Somebody was choreographed by Bobbie Bruton.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to channel our inner cheerleader and pitcher from our high school days, Mrs. Pritchard said. Luckily, a few of the members of the percussion section of our CHS marching band agreed to participate and put on the show of a lifetime.

Our coach, Bobbie Bruton, wanted to be a little more technical with dance moves this year, so she chose the cha-cha and my only request is that we dance to Whitney Houston. Bobbie choreographed the most amazing routine and Zach and I can't stop watching the replay of that night. The routine, the costumes, the audience, the judges it was definitely a night to remember.

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'Night to remember': Cartersville Dances With the Stars tops $208000 - Daily Tribune News