Mooresville family dances for healthy children

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — The Furick family of Mooresville is a step closer to earning $30,000 for Levine Children’s Hospital and a cool $5,000 for themselves as finalists in the Primrose Schools’ national “Family Dance-off ” video contest.

The Family Dance-off is part of Primrose’s “commitment to fostering happy hearts and healthy bodies not only in each of its schools and communities, but in all families nationwide,” Primrose spokesperson Samantha Kurz said of the third annual contest. “We think dancing is a great, cost-free way for families to stay active and enjoy quality time together.”

She added that, “families nationwide also rely on local children’s hospitals to help keep their children healthy. Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals perform miracles every day and Primrose wants to support their efforts.”

Levine Children's Hospital is a 234-bed hospital on the campus of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

The Furicks heard about the contest through their son’s school, Primrose School of Lake Norman. Three-year-old Kayd is already a dance enthusiast and loves to move with the beat, so parents Jasmine Bromfield and Michael Furick thought it was a natural move to enter him into the contest.

“Our son is very active and anytime music plays, he just has to dance,” said Bromfield. “We also loved the charity aspect and support Children’s Miracle Network and Levine; they’re great causes.”

To enter the contest, families were asked to record a 30-second video of their family dancing and submit them on FamilyDanceoff.com.

“From there, they promote their video and at the end of each week during the four weeks of the general contest and the four families with the most votes advanced to the finalist round,” Kurz explained. “Every week for four weeks, the top four videos with the most votes moved on to Finalist Week. There were four weeks of general contest, so in total, 16 finalists made it to Finalist Week based strictly on the popular votes.”

The Furicks filmed a video called “M.I.B. Protégé,” where Kayd bopped along with Will Smith’s song, “Men in Black.” The family donned sunglasses, moved to the music and had some help editing from Bromfield’s cousin, Daniel, a film student in New York.

“Part of the song has easy dance moves that Will Smith says, like bounce and slide, that we were able to walk through with Kayd,” said Bromfield. “He had a blast. Filming only took about an hour and I feel really good that people liked it so much that we’re a finalist. We’re very excited.”

One hundred seventeen videos were submitted and a total of 103,063 votes were cast around the country during the four weeks of the general contest.

“We had five families dancing for Levine Children’s Hospital this year and two of those five families made it to Finalist Week (the Furicks and Peetz family of Concord),” she said.

According to Kurz, in the first two years of the Family Dance-off, Primrose Schools donated a total of $101,000 to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. This year's contest will bring an additional $83,000 in donations to local children in need, plus cash prizes for the winning families.

“I don’t have any personal experience at Levine’s, as we’ve never had to take our children there, but I have friends in New York who have had serious medical issues with their children and had to stay in a hospital overnight,” said Bromfield of why she’s glad to help donate to Levine and the Children’s Miracle Network.

“It’s scary. I saw the care that they received and I’m comforted to know that we have a good children’s hospital close by if we need it. If our children ever get sick, I know they’ll be taken care of.”

Kurz said she hopes lots of people in this region vote for the two local finalist families to help win as much as $30,000 for Levine Children’s Hospital.

Grand prize winners will receive $30,000 for Levine and $5,000 for their family. Second place will earn $20,000 for the hospital and take away $3,000, while third place gains $15,000 for Levine’s and $1,500 for themselves. The Furick family has already earned $1,000 for the hospital for being finalists.

“The Family Dance-off is part of Primrose’s commitment to fostering happy hearts and healthy bodies not only in each of its schools and communities, but in all families nationwide,” she said. “We want families to get up, be active and help Levine Children’s Hospital, Charlotte’s local CMN Hospital and promote healthy lifestyles.”

To watch the Furick family’s video, visit FamilyDanceoff.com. Fans can vote once a day through March 30. The grand, second and third prize winners will be announced Saturday.

WSOC