Dancing for Dollars for Ukrainian Relief

For more than 10 years, Janet Reineck and her free-floating World Dance for Humanity troupe have hosted the gyrating flash mob that gathers in the Sunken Garden at the County Courthouse to dance to Michael Jackson’s monster hit “Thriller.” Every year, Reineck’s Thriller-thon draws 100-300 performers of all sizes, skills, and stripes. But since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Reineck has been all about Ukraine, all the time. Or as she put it, “I can’t not think about Ukraine all the time, every day. I can’t think about anything else.”

To this end, Reineck and her dancing co-conspirators have raised $60,000 in small donations to send to Ukraine for food, gas, and medical supplies. An anonymous Ukrainian here in town promised to match this amount by $50,000, making the total raised to date $110,000. According to Reineck, her silent angel has offered to make one more match.

Reineck, who in a previous incarnation worked as a humanitarian aid worker building schools and drilling wells in Kosovo, said she’s giving the money to the pastor of the Ukrainian United Evangelical Baptist Church, who in turn wires the money to Ukraine. There, in-country volunteers load up their cars with supplies and get them distributed where they are needed the most. On the way back, these volunteers pick up women and children fleeing Ukraine and take them to refugee outposts in Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Three of these volunteers, Reineck said, have been killed by Russian snipers. Every penny the group raises, she stressed, goes directly to Ukrainian relief efforts. Reineck’s dance organization is strictly volunteer, she said.