David Arce (R) and Marta Lyszkowicz are dedicating their performance at Embrace Families’ “Dance, Dream & Inspire” event to LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system. (Photo courtesy Arce)
ORLANDO | Embrace Families, a nonprofit organization that supports foster care, adoption and mentoring in Central Florida, returns with its ninth annual “Dance, Dream & Inspire” charity dance competition at the Hard Rock Live in Orlando May 7.
Five local celebrities will be paired with professional ballroom dancers to perform live and compete while attempting to fundraise $100,000 for support programs that help youth in foster care.
This year’s celebrity dancers are Sarah Hohman, executive director of Market Strategy for AdventHealth; Joe Kepner, sports anchor at WFTV; Anna Vasquez, IPRG account manager; Chassity Vega, CEO for the Greater Orlando Builders Association; and David Arce, business development manager for Karma Roofing. Arce joins the competition as a replacement for Karma Roofing’s owner Anoop Nayee, who was unable to continue after the pandemic led to the event having to be moved to a new date.
Arce says he is excited to join the event to help raise funds for Embrace Families, a nonprofit that Karma Roofing has worked with in the past.
“Last year we did a 5K for Embrace Families, we did a toy drive which was a partnership with Crunch Fitness, and now our next opportunity to help is to dance for these amazing kids,” he says.
Karma Roofing’s philanthropic work, which has included partnering with Coalition For the Homeless and Habitat for Humanity, goes back to the company’s mission “giving back to the community and making sure that everyone has a roof over their head.”
Arce will be partnering with professional dance Marta Lyszkowicz, a Ballroom Dance instructor who has been dancing for about 25 years, and they will be dedicating their performance to the LGBTQ+ youth that are in the foster care system.
“Marta and I looked at what we wanted to say with our performance,” Arce says. “I had read a statistic that 30% of the kids in the foster care system are a part of the LGBTQ community and when I saw that large of a number it broke my heart.”
That decision impacted every aspect of Arce and Lyszkowicz’s performance from the opening sequence to the song choice, all of which Arce wants to keep under wraps until the event.
“When we are out there dancing we want these kids to know that while they may feel a little bit lost, that they will be found. That’s a big hint to the song choice,” Arce says with a laugh. “[The performance] is a bit on the ambitious side, especially since I came into this late and we had a lot less time to practice and rehearse, but when we have that fire inside of us because we are doing it for a community that we believe in it definitely makes it easier.”
While Arce is coming into the event with less preparation time, he does have some experience that is helping him to step his performance up.
“I’ve helped family members choreograph quinceañera dances, I took ballroom classes as an elective in college and I was part of the glee club over at UCF and we use to do choreography for flash mobs at the Student Union, stuff like that so I do have a little bit of dance experience but nowhere near as professional as my dance partner,” Arce says. “We also went out and got Love is Universal T-shirts because I am also part time as Universal Studios as an entertainer and I wanted to make sure that message hits home that love is a universal concept. Especially during these political times of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill and things that are happening in Florida, for those in the LGBTQ+ community it’s great to know that there are people that have their backs and are fighting for them.”
You can vote for Arce and Lyszkowicz and help them meet their fund raising goal by going to p2p.onecause.com/embracefamiliesdancing/david-and-marta-2 and donating votes. Each vote is $5 and voting ends May 6.
Dance, Dream & Inspire will be at Hard Rock Live Orlando May 7. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased at p2p.onecause.com/embracefamiliesdancing/home.
