Merritt youth dancers run bottle drive to help studio survive

Posted by Merritt Herald | Jan 8, 2025

—— By Ty Lim

Kids and parents with Merritt’s Love to Dance Academy stood through the snowy-weather to hold a bottle drive to raise money for their program.

On Friday, Jan. 3 and 4, a few of the nearly hundred kids enrolled in the Love to Dance Academy were given the opportunity to help contribute to the school and interact with the community in Merritt by holding signs and asking those passing by to donate spare bottles or a little bit of cash.

The bottle drive is run twice a year, with both times usually happening in the first few months, and other fundraisers are hosted intermittently throughout the year.

The Love to Dance Academy is a non-for-profit, meaning all funds they get go back into the program and spent on paying instructors or rent and electricity. Tuition is still collected from students, though the owner Kia Henriksen says that money alone isn’t enough to sustain them, so they have to resort to other ways of making money.

“I think we live in an economy that’s still coming back, and the arts aren’t always put at the forefront.”

According to Henriksen fundraisers like these make them hundreds of dollars. Last year’s drive netted them about $700, she said, which they use to help with a variety of expenses.

“Everything that we raise just goes back into allowing us to have the funding to run the programs, to pay the bills,” she said.

According to her, without the fundraisers, Love to Dance Academy wouldn’t exist.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a we don’t have a reserve of any of any kind. It really keeps the only way that the dance program would exist is if the prices significantly increase to keep the program going. So we like to try and keep our prices fair and reasonable, and this is the only way that we can do that right now. So a lot of fundraisers,” she said. “Everything we do goes back into it. So no, I think without fundraisers like this, we would really struggle to keep the doors open.”

Henriksen also said some fundraisers are put on for special occasions in order to pay for specific projects. She gave the studio’s new flooring, which was installed two years ago, as an example of one of these.

Love to Dance Academy also gets grants to help with operating costs.

Their final dance show of the season, hosted in June at the Merritt Civic Centre, also acts as a fundraiser. 

Henriksen said the money raised from this allows them to run classes through the summer as well as cover the payments for some students whose families need the assistance.

As they get money from the community, Henriksen wants to make sure they give back in some way. She noted that the kids will be performing for seniors in the Florentine assisted living centre on Jan. 13. 

“We’re hoping we can bring them a little (post)-holiday cheer,” she said. “We have a really strong community at the studio, and then we’re trying to really build our ties with the community as well.”