In the same way your Great Aunt Karen makes the same blimmen Christmas Cake every, single year, we too organise our Charity Christmas Party, and there are some things that just stay the same. It’s always at Christmas time, it’s always for charity, there’s always Maria and there’s always donuts. We choose two organisations and raise as much money as we possibly can with the power of our epic and generous community. Instead of a Aunty Karen’s Christmas Cake, you get to learn the moves to the best (and Maria’s most popular) hit, All I Want For Christmas Is You. The difference each year? Our 2019 charities: The Neonatal Trust & Youthline!

That time we announced that Lesa & Clair were expecting babies, literally two days apart.

Last year we raised over $4000 for Sexual Abuse Help Wellington and Wellington Rape Crisis and we were expecting to only raise half of that. we were totally overwhelmed to see the response from our community, when armed with the theme of Girl Power, to see what we could achieve together.

That’s why our Christmas Party will continue to be a charity event and why we’ll always choose two new charities each year! There are so many deserving non-profits that do super important work and rely on the support of fundraising events like ours. This is the maths we base our charity events on:

People are happy to pay for Shut Up & Dance class
Shut Up & Dance is happy to give $$$ to charities

Pretty simple equation! But of course, we can’t reach our targets without finding people who would be prepared to spend $50 on their dance class (all proceeds go to the charities) and of course without the support of the ace local businesses who have kindly donated to our raffle! You can purchase your raffle ticket for $5 each, with no limit on entries. There will be three chances to win something on the night, so don’t forget to pre-purchase your ticket when you book!

$100 worth of Pizza Pomodoro
Shampoo & Conditioner from our faves at The Power Room
A FLOAT from Floatwell
A 10 Trip from our mates at UpFitness ($200)
$100 voucher from Oh Natural
An Iko Iko Hamper ($115)
Two yoga bundles from Lululemon ($304 each)
A treat from Organic Dynamic
Treats from Coffee Supreme including their iconic Barista socks
Viva La Vulva (perineal spray) from The Wild Ones
For Mums Coupon Book ($50)

Back to the stars of the night. The Neonatal Trust is dedicated to making a difficult start to life a little bit easier. Hugo, Clair’s baby was born with complications and what was supposed to be an exciting time was fraught with stress, fear and trauma. Fortunately, The Neonatal Trust were able to ensure Hugo’s life and provided support to Clair and Jack during the intensive care stage as well as between the transition to home and onwards. But Clair and Jack’s story is not unique. In New Zealand, there are 5000 babies born with complications every year, and one premature baby born every 90 minutes. Your contribution to The Neonatal Trust provides the trust with equipment that is not government funded as well as supports them to fulfil world leading research in Neonatal Care.

Young people are disproportionately represented in our suicide statistics in New Zealand. 83% of young people cite mental health issues, depression and anxiety as some of the biggest issues they face today, and in recent years, there has been an 8% increase in the number of young people who now view suicide as a big issue for their generation (56%). The Youthline Helpline costs over $1.1m per year to operate ($90,000 is from government funding and the balance needs to be fundraised every year in what is an increasingly challenging fundraising climate) and without it, the 2/5 texts received that relate to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide, or the 1/ 5 texts received specifically around suicide (a 40% increase over the past 4 years) would not be answered and the people behind those texts would not be supported. Youthline has been supporting young people and working with communities for 50 years and their work empowers young people with the tools to deal with life’s stressors before mental health issues become suicidal tendencies.

We asked our community (you) and these charities resonated (or you suggested them!) so we’re super excited to reach our target with your support/love of dancing. To book your ticket, please email us at hello@shutupanddance.co. You can view all payment and booking information on this page.

See you there!

Sunday 15th December at San Fran from 6.30pm, tickets from $30

The Shut Up & Dance Christmas Party