#SaveTheDiamondDancers

Where do I even begin with this post? A lot has happened since I last clicked publish! It's a long post today and I understand if you don't want to take the time to read it all. If not please just head over to the Save the Milwaukee Diamond Dancers Facebook page and click "like." Read on if you want to know why we need the support...

In my "Thankful" post from the day before Thanksgiving, one of the things I mentioned being grateful for was my dance career. 20 years of spandex costumes, dress rehearsals, post-recital Culver's runs, early morning weekend practices, and countless routines would come to an end for me in 2014. I made the conscious decision to give up one of the biggest aspects of my life so that I can focus all of my efforts to my startup company that is launching in a few months. As you can imagine this was an incredibly tough and emotional decision for me to make.

Dancers are passionate, determined human beings. We tend to relate almost every part of our lives back to dance. It is what makes us who we are. So this last season as co-captain and team member of the Milwaukee Brewer's Diamond Dancers was a whirlwind. When I would look around at my teammates at practice I would constantly second guess giving it up. My 26 teammates have been a dream for the past 5 years. We make each other laugh, cheer one another up after a hard day, and encourage our team member's dancing, fitness habits, and work aspirations. We are a family!

I will never forget my last performance at Miller Park in September. I hit the dirt, the song finished, and the routine was over. That's when our team runs to the backfield of the baseball diamond for player intros…it's a decent run after just performing. My face was so ugly in a failed attempt to hold back tears! The crowd must have thought….that girl is seriously injured. Ha! Nope, my heart just hurt a bit...

I've had months to prepare for my "retirement" from dancing. This week the rest of my team had their "retirement" pushed on them in an instant when the Brewers/Miller cut our team from the budget for 2015. Without a sponsor there can be no team. It is incredibly heartbreaking for the women like me who have danced their entire lives and would be lost without it. Not only that, but the community of Milwaukee will lose so much without the Diamond Dancers. We are a charitable team that has done so many charity events I couldn't even keep track. We even started our very own dance competition event just to raise money for pancreatic cancer. We've inspired little girls, breast cancer survivors, and children with terminal illnesses and given many people the chance to perform at Miller Park before an MLB game in one of our many clinics. Theses girls deserve to stick around for another 9 amazing year (and many, many more).

With hopes to have our old sponsors change their minds or find a new sponsor, a Facebook campaign has been created called "Save the Milwaukee Diamond Dancers" or hashtag #savethediamonddancers. In just over a day the page has 3,000+ likes and has reached close to 80,000 people. Please like the page and support our deserving team!

CLICK HERE to like "Save the Milwaukee Diamond Dancers"