July’s Awesome Ottawa award goes to Tara Howlett, Victor Perez, and Jose Sandoval to support Latin dance at Lansdowne.
Tara Howlett, Victor Perez, and Jose Sandoval. Photo: Awesome Ottawa.
“We’re hosting a weekly dance series every Saturday evening this summer, outdoors at Lansdowne Park,” explains Tara. “The event is completely free, and we welcome beginners and people of all ages—no partner required!”
Tara is a social worker, psychotherapist, and dancer. Victor works in property maintenance and is a dance instructor. Jose works in the tech sector and is a dance instructor. Each evening starts with a free Latin dance class from 6–8pm and continues with a dance social until 11pm. They only started this project at the beginning of July, and are already attracting about 200 participants a week.
“We’re delighted to bring back public social partner dancing after the pandemic,” says Tara, “and we want to use it as a tool of connection and community.”
For more information, or to volunteer, visit instagram.com/uniteddanceottawa.
Awesome Ottawa is part of a global movement of self-organizing chapters forwarding the interest of awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time. At each chapter, 10 or so “trustees” each contribute $100 every month, and review short applications received online to decide on the recipient of the pooled funds—usually a local project, but occasionally a particularly awesome one far away from home. Globally, more than $6 million has already been awarded—$166,000 of that by Awesome Ottawa. For more information, visit awesomeottawa.ca.
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