FERMANAGH jivers are getting set to take on a 10-hour dancathon for charity.
‘Dance For Lucy’ has been organised by James McGrath in memory of his mum who passed away from Alzheimer’s and Dementia at the age of 60.
The all-day dance will take place on Saturday, June 29 in the Glencarn Hotel Castleblayney at 11am and will run right through to the early hours of the morning.
The money raised from the event will go towards building a school in Madagascar, Africa named ‘Saint Lucia’s’ after James’ mother.
James teaches dance classes all over the country and recently has held classes in Fermanagh, he will be dancing for 10 hours in one day and one of the Fermanagh dancers who is joining him on the challenge is Aimee Fitzpatrick from Tempo.
Aimee has been jiving for just under a year but since she started it has taken over her life.
“I got into it when my cousin saw some local jiving lessons outside Newtownbutler in a community centre and wanted someone to go with her.
“We went to a country music festival last year and met some dancers at it, chatted and danced with them that night and kept in contact after the festival and we have been out dancing pretty much every week and weekend since,” said Aimee.
Aimee is going to attempt to do the full ten hours of dancing at the event and is delighted that it is for a good cause.
“The atmosphere and buzz throughout the day is going to be class, organising the danceathon has shown us how much the dancing community comes together.
“It is the talk of the country on the dance scene, everyone you talk to is going, over the past few weekends of dances all the talk is who’s staying, the lineup and how long their attempting to dance for,” explained Aimee.
Another local dancer looking forward to the big day is Malachy Leonard, pictured right, from Lisnaskea.
“I’ve been jiving just over two years, I got into jiving because I had friends doing it and they always would ask me to do lessons, so I went to a lesson and just fell in love with it,” said Malachy.
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