Rumba for a Cause
Campus community raises roof, funds for Mercer County mentors

By Jessica Demetriou

When sophomore Tina Limbo went to the Rider Rumba Dance-a-thon last Friday, she had no idea how much fun it would be to dance for six hours straight.

“All the lighting gave the dance floor a great effect and the deejay played some really good music,” Limbo said.

For the first half of the night, winning wasn’t a matter of how long you danced, but how well you danced. Limbo said she hesitated to enter the limbo contest, but her friends told her she was born to do the limbo because of her last name.

“I won a $50 gift certificate to Sotto Ristorante and Lounge in Princeton for winning first place in the Limbo contest and later I also won a gift certificate to Cold Stone Creamery just for dancing well,” she said.

Limbo was more than happy to come out and dance at the Rider Rumba, because it looked fun and she had a lot of friends to dance with.

“By the end of the night I wasn’t tired of dancing at all,” Limbo said. “I was psyched to be there.”

Limbo said the children from Big Brothers Big Sisters were also at the event, and she was glad she got a chance to dance with them and see who was really benefiting from the event.

“The kids were very polite and very excited to be there,” Limbo said. “They were playing a lot of games and having a great time. The people that put this together must be extremely caring and incredibly generous.”

Co-coordinators and sophomores Cara Giovinazzo and Danielle Phillips said they couldn’t be happier with the way the first Rider Rumba turned out, which was sponsored by the Lawrenceville SGA.

“This is one of the best charities out there to help underprivileged children,” Giovinazzo said. “We are really trying to get the awareness out there.”

Giovinazzo said the $5,600 raised by the end of the night would be going toward improving the mentoring programs at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer County.

“I hope this is an event we can continue in the future and it will just keep getting bigger and better,” Giovinazzo said.

Freshman Danielle Gizzo, who learned about the event through Emerging Leaders, said she decided to volunteer her time coordinating the event as well, in the hopes that she could be a part of raising money for such a good cause and get different clubs on both campuses to gain awareness.

“I think it was really a great turnout,” Gizzo said. “Greek Life really stepped up and supported us, as well as a lot of the other students on campus.”

Gizzo said all the prizes, which included overnight hotel stays, Stress Factory comedy club tickets, a private airplane ride and a WPST studio tour, were donated.

The majority of prizes were given away to people who won different contests or showed off impressive dance moves. Grad student Dan Jacobs and senior Steve Klemchalk went arm-in-arm and used their own original dancing skills to win the first contest of the night, a dance-off to the “Cha Cha Slide.”

“Winning the first prize was very entertaining to say the least, especially since I was doing the ‘Cha Cha’ with Steve,” Jacobs said. He plans to give his McCarter Theatre tickets away to someone who would appreciate them more.

“I didn’t come for the prizes,” Jacobs said. “I came out because this is a good cause and I don’t mind making a fool of myself dancing.”

When the prizes had been given away by raffle tickets, which students received at the beginning of the night, the announcements for the highest donations were called. The second-place prize of an exotic dream car rental went to Phillips, who raised $490. The biggest donation of the night was from Junior Laura Vendetta. For her efforts she who won the coveted nine-day Caribbean cruise by raising more than $900.

“I basically just asked all my friends and family for their support in raising the money and they really came through for me,” Vendetta said.

She said this will be the first cruise she has ever been on. The real dilemma is in choosing who she will take with her.

“There are a lot of people who helped me raise the money so it’s going to be a tough decision,” Vendetta said.