THUNDER BAY – A brother-sister duo brought doctors and dancers together for a good cause Saturday.
Based on a television show of a similar name, Patricia and Joseph Del Paggio presented Dancing with the Docs, an event that honours the siblings' late mother.
Patricia Del Paggio says that Dancing with the Stars was their mother’s favourite show, and with her love of dance, and her brother's network of colleagues, recreating the show was a great way to honour her after she passed away from cancer in 2019.
“We put both of our passions together; I'm a drama teacher, he's an oncologist at the hospital, so we got dancers, we got doctors, and we created Dancing with the Docs,” Patricia said.
“It was actually presented to me at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation, and it was something they thought I could take on, and yeah, it was it was easy to do with both of our professions aligning, so, dancers and doctors, it was easy to create it.”
Patricia says the event was originally supposed to be held in 2020 but had to be postponed roughly five times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So, that brings us to November of 2022,” she said. “Yes, so it sold out in 24 hours and then all of those ticket holders kept their tickets which was incredible and are here tonight to celebrate with us two years later.”
The event also served as a fund raiser for a local initiative through the Thunder Bay Regional Health Science Centre according to Joseph Del Paggio.
“So we're raising the funds to put toward the PET program at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, and this is really to help patients access a test in a timely fashion,” he said,
“And it's a test that will hopefully expedite their cancer care, so a very important one.”
The Del Paggios say it's been a hard two years for everybody, and they would also like to honour all of the health care professionals who attended.
“Their morale has been, you know, generally low over the last few years as you can imagine,” said Joseph. “And just to have all my colleagues here with smiles looking so dapper, it's really special.”
