Drive-in Charity Ball a success

Students use creative approach to continue annual tradition, $45,000 fundraised for Access for All

Cheryl Deslaurier - 1 April 2021

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What do you get when you have an unpaved parking lot and some precipitation – a whole lot of mud! This was the ‘scene’ at the March Slumber Party Under the Stars Charity Ball this year.

Lots of mud, popcorn and laughs is how Hyun-Joo (Lina) Lim, DDS Class of 2022 student and lead organizer, would describe this year’s Charity Ball event.

Students were not going to let COVID get in the way of their annual tradition so they organized a drive in movie event that garnered a tremendous amount of interest. Lim thinks the overwhelming response to this event was because people were looking for things to do during COVID.

They got the idea from former U of A DDS grad, Andrew Gibb, who had or-ganized something similar through his church. Classic Landscapes provided permission to use their parking lot free of charge and the students rented a big screen.

Here are how the numbers stack up:

  • $65 -Cost of admission for one parking spot for one movie feature including 1 medium pizza, 2 drinks, 1 bag of candy and 1 bag of popcorn
  • 500 -Cars (over the two nights)
  • 2-4 -People in each car
  • 50 -DDS & DH student volun-teers
  • 30 -Students on the organiz-ing team
  • Countless number of hours spent volunteering
  • Bags of popcorn (students lost track!)
  • 7 -Door prizes that were do-nated from community busi-nesses
  • $2,460 -50/50 Raffle Pot
  • $45,000 Net Profit Raised for Access for All

Access for All Dentistry co-founded by DDS students Reid Boulet and Wo-jciech Junikiewicz is a newly formed non-profit organization providing dental care to remote communities in Alberta and the North.

Lim says that everyone was willing to work long hours and into the late night/early morning, even those students that had exams on Monday morning and volunteered at SHINE.

This was made possible by the many DH and DDS students who worked very hard to make sure this event was a success.

Lim says it was a true team bonding experience with her classmates and a nice change from what has largely been a virtual event world.

The event was sponsored by Kingsway Oral Surgery