Stepping out for youth mentoring

BRINGING IT HOME: Keith Lavimodiere of The Washington Trust Co. practices with dance instructor Deb O’Donnell. He’s one of seven “celebrity” dancers in an April 26 fundraiser for the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. / PBN FILE PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
BRINGING IT HOME: Keith Lavimodiere of The Washington Trust Co. practices with dance instructor Deb O’Donnell. He’s one of seven “celebrity” dancers in an April 26 fundraiser for the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. / PBN FILE PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

It’s nine o’clock on a Monday night and Keith Lavimodiere is just stepping out onto the dance floor at The Dancin’ Feelin’ studio in Warwick. It’s one of several practices the vice president and branch manager of The Washington Trust Co.’s Reservoir Avenue branch in Cranston will have with professional dance partner Deb O’Donnell, as he prepares for his big night.
Lavimodiere is one of seven “celebrity” dancers at this year’s Dancing with the Stars of Mentoring, a fundraiser and ballroom-dance competition that will be held on April 26th at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in Cranston to benefit the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership, a nonprofit that promotes and supports a network of youth-mentoring programs around Rhode Island.
Lavimodiere says he loves to dance but ultimately found himself in the competition after going to last year’s event and bragging to one of his colleagues about his abilities. The colleague is a member of the Mentoring Partnership’s board of directors and responded to his boasts by asking him to take part this year.
“I was mentored … growing up and always found that having a mentor who could give some good advice, some guidance, and point you in the right direction, really helped me along the way,” he said. “And I thought this would be a wonderful way to try and help and give back.”
His employer is also an event sponsor.
Elizabeth Eckel, senior vice president of marketing at Washington Trust, said the company “wants to support worthy causes in the state but more importantly we want to support the activities in which our employees are involved because if it’s important them, it’s important to us. I think it makes them a much happier employee.”
That corporate support has begun to play a huge role in organizing the event and selecting who takes part. The fundraiser, in its sixth year, originally focused on local “celebrities” like members of the media, politicians, sports stars and others with name recognition. But in the past couple of years that has shifted. Now, the majority of the “celebrity” dancers are management-level employees at some of Rhode Island’s biggest businesses. “In past years we’ve had a [New England] Patriot dance for us and it was wonderful,” said Jo-Ann Schofield, president and chief operating officer of the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. “It did draw a bit of a crowd for us, but it’s not somebody that would really be going out there and doing the fundraising part of it.
“What we’ve learned over time is that it’s the people that really put their heart and soul into it, do the fundraising, bring people into the room, and bring the support of their employers into the event that makes the fundraiser more successful,” she said.
Schofield is hoping to beat the $85,000 raised last year. Money is raised from a combination of corporate donations, ticket sales, a silent auction and donations collected by contestants before and during the competition.
Nearly all the dancers this year are connected to businesses, including Washington Trust, Koch Eye Associates, Bank of America, and Textron Inc. The dancers typically bring their friends and colleagues to the event and often receive donations from them. For many, those donations are often doubled by matching gift programs their employers have in place; and like Washington Trust, most become corporate sponsors of the event, donating thousands of dollars to help the cause.
Karen Warfield is community-affairs manager at Textron and another one of this year’s dancers. She is in the unique position of seeing this event both from her personal interest and the interest of the company she works for.
“I’m really hoping that my participation in this will raise awareness of the mission of Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership and its good work, not only with Textron employees but throughout Rhode Island … and I want to learn to ballroom dance,” she said.
From the corporate point of view, Warfield explained, “we can not support every organization that comes to us. So we look for ones that our employees are involved in, but also ones that meet the mission of our giving focus.” Given her role at Textron, Warfield also sees the value in holding a unique type of fundraiser, like a ballroom-dancing competition.
“I’m always involved in going to the traditional lunches and dinners for fundraising events, which are great, but an event like this tends to draw more interest because it is very different,” she said. “There are some other organizations that do some really different kinds of themed events that I see tend to draw more people to their fundraising efforts, which of course raises more money.”
Beyond the opportunity for employees to participate in unique fundraising efforts, both Washington Trust and Textron see other benefits from their support for such events.
“Obviously you always want to have your name associated with a quality organization that is doing something good for the community,” said Eckel. “We kicked off the ‘I love Rhode Island Campaign’ about six months ago. We have a website, www.IluvRI.com and a Facebook page with over 10,000 fans. … We are trying to support all the good things going on in Rhode Island. Our hope is that if everyone is doing good things and succeeding in Rhode Island then just maybe this economy will turn around a little bit.”
Warfield says at Textron the biggest gains from volunteering or fundraising come in employee moral.
“You can see that the employees who are volunteering are getting so much out of it. Even more sometimes than the people they are serving; and it’s great networking for employees because often times we don’t get off our floors or out of our offices,” she said.
Back at his branch office, Lavimodiere knows his decision to participate in this dance competition is going to be a success for him, his company and the Mentoring Partnership.
“It’s been really well-received by my colleagues and customers here at the bank, and the people in the community who know me well,” he said. “It gives you a sense that they care about you and what you believe in.” •


For more information about the event, visit www.MentorRI.org.

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