Dancing with our stars 2023, where the money goes

Over the past two months, 10 personalities have been working with the community and businesses to raise funds for the foundation's programs.

Chief executive Andrew Eales said he was extremely grateful to the more than 200 people who had donated to the cause so far, despite the challenging economic environment.

"It's a great reflection on the community and the recognition that businesses and individuals have - that we need to drive local solutions to local issues."

Today, The Courier takes a look at some of the programs the fundraising efforts will support.

For the past five years, Samantha Milne has been helping young drivers in Ballarat gain their supervised hours.

As an L2P mentor, she said the idea to volunteer started while she was helping her daughters get their hours up and realised how big the time commitment was.

"I ended up helping their friends as well and I thought there's got to be other kids in the community that need the help."

Ms Milne said it was important for her to help others gain more independence and share tips for driving in areas outside of Ballarat.

"It gives them a bit more confidence with their own self-esteem and being able to go and find jobs and be able to do the things they need to do because they don't have to rely on other people to help them out," she said.

"I make sure they go places they've never been and get the experience of driving all different ways, in all different road styles."

The L2P program has been running under The Ballarat Foundation for the past 10 years.

The program is supported by the state Department of Transport and the Traffic Accident Commission but the foundation is in charge of funding the cars needed for the program.

Mr Eales said the program was important to secure a job, as many places required workers to have a licence but also to grow community connections.

"For a lot of young people in our community, the public transport - particularly on the outskirts of Ballarat and more regional areas - just isn't sufficient for them to be able to stay connected to their communities," he said.

Last year fundraising efforts from Dancing with our Stars delivered thousands of books to children across Ballarat and surrounding areas.

The Ballarat Reads program works in conjunction with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, Penguin Books and local community partners to deliver a book a month to children aged five and less.

Australian Catholic University early-literacy lecturer Tina Daniel said access to books before children got to school was a vital part of learning and language development.

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She said children were able to develop a wide vocabulary, the ability to express ideas verbally and grow their general knowledge which underpinned their knowledge of words.

"The main thing is to read aloud... that's the most important thing that you can do for a child," Dr Daniel said. "Families and even older siblings can do so much by reading to, and with, children."

She said it was also important to continue to ask questions and interact with young children about the stories they were reading.

"The important thing is the interaction that you are able to give with books, whether online or physical books," Dr Daniel said.

She said most children will need explicit instruction to help learn the sounds of language and how this connects to letters and groups of letters.

Parents can have a role in this before children get to school through reading and engaging with the text.

Dr Daniels said not all children will take to reading easily, but their early experience of language will help them build ta strong foundation.

All of the foundation's funds go back to Ballarat residents.

Mr Eales said this allowed them to be quickly adaptable when different issues arose, for example during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

"We partnered with the Salvation Army and Ballarat Community Health to start distributing food parcels to local schools," he said.

"That wasn't a program that the foundation had previously operated, but due to the support that we have, through events like Dancing with our Stars, we had the capacity to respond to those immediate needs."

The foundation also funds a number of different grants, including community grants where groups are able to deploy their specific expertise and programs like the back to school vouchers at the beginning of the school year.

Next week, the 10 personalities who are part of the Dancing with our Stars 2023 group will take to the stage.

Under the guidance of The Dance Studio owner Shelley Ross, they have grown from a group with little dance experience to confidently dancing together.

Already the groups have made it to their $100,000 goal and are working to get the last few donations over the line before July 15.

"In terms of the next couple of weeks, we're going to try and drive that number higher still," Mr Eales said.

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