Sweatshop Movement

Sweatshop Movement, and our SWEAT teams, are Racine's premiere, professional nonprofit dance program with a competitive edge. We are excited to share our unique COVID story as it pertains to our competitions and hope to gather communIty support to help us make dreams come true... so what's our story?

In March 2020, just 5 days before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down, our dancers placed for the first time ever at a large National Hip Hop Dance Competition series called “Monster’s Dance” at their Chicago Event. We placed with one routine and as a result were offered a full paid bid to compete in LA at the competition series National Finals, called the “LA Finale”. (A “paid bid” means our competition fees are waived, but we still must pay for our trip.)

Because of the pandemic, the LA Finale was cancelled in person & we too were forced to cancel our exciting plans to travel to LA. We competed virtually, and even secured a National virtual title in our category as well as the Entertainment Award for the competition! But we all missed the opportunity to travel to LA…

In April 2021, we placed in Chicago again, this time without a paid bid to compete, and while we planned to attend, we were ultimately unable to make the trip ultimately due to capacity restrictions at the LA Finale - we were unable to fundraise & get tickets to the event on time, with significantly less spots available.

In April 2022, we DOUBLE QUALIFIED to compete in LA - TWO routines and TWO paid bids. We are FINALLY planning to travel with 16 Racine youth to compete in LA from August 4-7. This is a HUGE opportunity for our Racine kids, one that NONE before us in Racine have been offered… but also a HUGE financial undertaking for the kids in our program.

In a concerted effort to offset the mounting fees to make this trip happen, we began fundraising back in June, hosting a series of car washes and individual-dancer fundraisers, and have decided we are making this trip happen by any means for our kids.

We are currently seeking community support in donations large and small to help make dreams come true for local youth who TRULY DESERVE IT! Funds raised will be split up and distributed to the SWEAT members attending our LA Finale, so while there is no set amount we are collecting, the greater the amount the greater the impact! Please consider support our SWEAT kids on the Road to LA!!

GENERAL PROGRAM INFO

Web: sweat-move.org

Facebook: facebook/com/SweatshopMovement

Instagram: @sweatshopmovement

TikTok: @sweatshopmovement

Youth in our Sweatshop Competitive program train for between 4-20 hours per week, meet academic requirements all year long, mentor each other & develop a strong brother/sisterhood when participating in our program.