Dancing With Desire Recap

Ft. Walton Beach studio's charity event on June 12th, Dancing With Desire, was a huge success! Featuring a host of celebrities from Dancing With The Stars, this program raised money for the Desire Street Ministries and the local YMCA.

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Desire Street Ministries facilities in New Orleans, the Executive Director, Danny Wuerffel and his wife Jessica, wanted to put together a benefit to help displaced inner city youth get back into a permanent facility. Having taken dance lessons at the Fort Walton Beach studio, they turned to Fred Astaire for help. Luann and Bruno Collins were more than happy to help. According to Luann, tickets sold out early this year and they had to add chairs to accommodate all the calls for the show. They also had a “Make A Wish” family join the show as their guest!

Most of the guest dancers were longtime friends of the Astaire studio staff. Among the performers were Maks Chmerkovskiy, Tony Dovolani and Elena Grinenko, Mark Ballas, Derek Hough, Fabian Sanchez and Marlee Matlin, Jonathan Roberts and Valentina Kostenko, Jesse DeSoto and Jackie Josephs, Eric Luna and Georgia Ambarian, Ilya Iframov and Nadia Goulina.

“This was our biggest to date and the phones wouldn’t stop ringing,” said Luann Collins about the event.

Click here to read a recap about this exciting event.