More than 100 people filled the McDonald Theatre Friday night for a Halloween-themed lip sync battle. Relief Nursery hosted its third annual Lip Sync Reloaded event that featured eight performing groups from the community. Each group graced the stage in costumes related to their performance, from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” to men performing cheer routines in green and white cheer suits.
Relief Nursery is an organization formed to help parents in need of guidance to have healthy family relationships. According to their mission statement, Relief Nursery “prevents the cycle of child abuse and neglect through early intervention that focuses on building successful and resilient children, strengthening parents, and preserving families.”
While this was presented as a fun event, audience members were also able to bid between $25 and $1,000 on the group they found to be the most entertaining. The donations will be used for parental education courses for a full year. The funds generated from this event are helping Relief Nursery in their mission to successfully educate parents who may need these resources. Though the issue behind this event is a serious matter, it was great to have a group of members from the community come and put their all into a lip sync performance.
The performances ranged from tributes to Madonna and NSYNC to the Addams Family and Hocus Pocus reenactments. Eight groups from around Eugene and Springfield performed: Eugene’s Summit Funding, Inc., The Human Bean, Eugene Emerald’s, Relief Nursery, Junior League of Eugene, the Eugene-Springfield Fire Department, Eugene Active 20-30 Club #920 and Kendall Auto Group.
Jen Henrikson, a board member of the Junior League of Eugene, dressed as an early 2000s Britney Spears for her performance. She explained her reasons for participating in the lip sync event as a way to connect what her organization (which is mostly targeted toward women) does and how it coincides with what the Relief Nursery stands for.
Though the event was the first stop in Halloween festivities for some, various people from all ages attended. One member of the audience, Haley Schuman, described the event as a great way to have fun doing something that’s never been done in the area before, and to support the Relief Nursery.
“There’s really not an event like it in the Eugene-Springfield area. … it’s kind of a trend right now to do like the lip sync thing,” Schuman said.
After the performances, members of the crowd were able to enjoy the sweet tunes of Eugene’s own Pop Rocks band. The admission for the lip sync challenge covered the performance fees. Refreshments and pizza were also provided for sale.
Community Engagement Coordinator Kristen Bartels plans to do this event again next year and is always looking for more participants. She urges members of the community to set up a team and get involved with the lip sync battle by contacting her.
At the end of the night, the winner of the lip synch battle went Kendall Auto Group. They performed “Thriller,” and “I’ll Put a Spell on You,” from the Hocus Pocus film.
