Sundance raises glass, disco ball to CAMP Rehoboth co-founder

For one night, the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center was transformed into a nightclub. A giant disco ball, flanked by several smaller ones, caught thousands of rainbow rays that spilled over hundreds of dancing bodies.

It was Sundance 2018, CAMP Rehoboth's 31st annual cocktail party, auction and excuse to dance for hours on end. The Sept. 2 fundraiser has brought in over $2 million for charity since its inception, according to executive director Murray Archibald. 

"In the Name of Love" was the fundraiser's theme this year, and hearts were sprawled throughout the venue as dancers, bidders and volunteers honored the presence of a man who had been the face of Sundance since 1988.

Steve Elkins, co-founder and longtime executive director of CAMP Rehoboth, died in March of lymphoma.

"Last year when Steve stepped on the Sundance stage, he was in so much pain, he could barely stand," Archibald said. "Two days later he was in the hospital."

Elkins and Archibald built the nonprofit LGBTQ organization from the ground up. CAMP Rehoboth continues to provide services from flu shots to counseling, host events like the AIDS Walk and offer Alcoholics Anonymous groups a place to meet. 

"Of all the things that Steve and I did together, Sundance was our heart. The first one was our 10th anniversary (together)," Archibald said just before the fundraiser's live auction. "This would have been our 40th."

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Sundance started as a singular cause in 1988, when Elkins and Archibald watched their friends, one after another, die of AIDS without the research or medicine to slow down the epidemic.

"We were all so frustrated and wanted to do something," Archibald said. So for their 10th anniversary, he and Elkins held a party that doubled as a fundraiser for AIDS campaigns.

These days, all proceeds go directly to CAMP Rehoboth. Last year, Sundance raised over $120,000 for the community service organization. 

"There's no social agency that does this," volunteer Monica Fleischmann said of the nonprofit's abundance of wellness, counseling and health programs coupled with its penchant for fun and, of course, dance.

The first of the two-night benefit was a party brimming with cocktails and over 500 donated items up for auction, including glass art, pottery, paintings and a lamb chop dog toy that by 8:30 p.m. had eight bids, the highest being $55. 

Lorne Crawford hosted a 20-item live auction later Saturday night, dishing up vacation cruises, restaurant gift cards and a "Love" quilt that ended up selling for $2,700. 

A vegan pizza dinner was advertised by Crawford as being for "25 of your friends or whoever you found on Grindr," causing more than a few laughs from the crowd. 

"Steve always wanted Sundance to be the best it could be, and he would want us to laugh and to dance, to bid extravagantly, to celebrate, and to spend as much time with the people that we love as we possibly can," Archibald said, asking the crowd to raise their glasses, hands and hearts to Elkins.

The next evening, Archibald was shaking and grooving and raising his arms high among constantly changing colors.

"Doing it without him is extremely hard," he said days before Sundance 2018. Hundreds of volunteers showed up this year, lessening the burden of planning a high-energy event without the person Archibald had organized it with for decades.

On the stage, alone and with hundreds of people, Archibald danced.