(Note from Earl Sleek: the below was sent to me for publicity, I think, so I'm FanPosting it now.  Charity's always cool, and I've been a repeat guest on Forklift's Blackhawks radio show, so I'm endorsing it, despite the dancing.)

Hello everyone.  

As most of you know, I've been known to spin my way around a dance floor to varying degrees of success. It may be the only thing I do while clothed that I enjoy as much as hockey-related activities.  

Anyway, every year for the past few years I've been involved with Dancing With Chicago Celebrities. It's pretty much a Chicago-area version of "Dancing With The Stars". While we've have yet to have any hockey players involved with the event, we've had basketball players like Kendall Gill, and football players like Mike Adamle and (this year) Gale Sayers. So there is actually a sports angle here.  

The money raised goes to Susan G. Komen For The Cure, which is used for breast cancer research, as well as counseling and treatment for those affected with the disease.  

Anyway, here's where you come in...  

I've set up a fundraising site here. Closest I could find to a Blackhawk dancing. Anyway, what I'm asking people to do is brown-bag their lunch for one day, and send us the $10. That's all. I figure between all our readers, we can raise an awful lot of money, and really do something good. Along with putting the hit on each of you for $10, I'm also asking you to put something up on your sites about the event, and I'd be happy to do a brief write-up (shorter than this email, I promise).  

Now, normally if a fundraiser collects over $2000 in donations, they get a free ticket to the event. I believe it pretty much defeats the purpose of a fundraiser to give tickets away, but it wasn't my call. Not that it matters, my wife and I bought a table for the event, so a free ticket is useless to me. Once I hit my mark (which I did last year), I'll ask them to give the ticket to someone affected by the disease who normally wouldn't be able to attend. Just to clarify that there's no financial benefit to me for any of this.  

Let's see what we're capable of!  

Forklift

hockeenight.com