Dance Party Fundraising by Ruth Paget
One of the quickest ways the Inner-City Youth Tour to China raised money was with dance parties in 1978 – 1979.
The way this worked was that you paid $5 if you brought something to eat or drink for the party. If you just showed up, you paid $10. Wrists were marked with “paid” stamps like they are at small club shows as a receipt. Homes in Detroit are large.
You can easily fit 100 people in a living room with a full dining room off the side. We could raise between $500 - $750 in an evening with a dance party – an absolute win-win fundraiser.
People are not finicky eaters in Detroit. I think the standard party dish is onion dip with Lay’s potato chips and soda. If you make onion dip yourself, it is super cheap.
Detroit has a huge Eastern European population that came to the city to build cars, which means that sour cream is plentiful and inexpensive in the Motor City.
The hillbilly contingent to the workforce (including my dad) mixes dry French onion soup mix with sour cream to make onion dip. This is great with plain potato chips or the ones with chives and sour cream. I taught the Puerto Ricans on the tour how to make this.
Dance parties were a huge hit, because this was the Disco Era when we were raising money to go to China. We danced and sang into the night to Donna Summer, Lionel Richie, Gloria Gaynor, Sister Sledge, Chaka Khan, Santana, and Earth, Wind, and Fire.
The Inner-City Youth Tour to China did go to China, and the dance alumni of our fundraising efforts went on to make beach parties at Daytona Beach, Florida a huge success, too, I think.
One of the co-leaders of the youth tour went on to found and edit People en Español as a lasting cultural impact of our fundraising efforts.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
