How do you raise $110,000 in one night and have a ton of fun in the process? At the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the answer was to host a dance competition and dinner event based on the hit TV show "Dancing with the Stars."

Called "Dancing with the Wilmington Stars: Seahawk Style," the competition generated money for UNCW's student-athlete scholarship fund and drew a sell-out crowd of 450 guests. Eighteen local volunteers, some well known in the community and some not, danced with their spouses, other volunteers, or dance professionals from the school and local community.

"The participants will say I twisted their arms to get them to dance, and I owe them all," says UNCW Athletic Director Kelly Mehrtens. "I recruited them through different acquaintances I've made in the community and people stepped up."

UNCW publicized the night with press releases, posters, and cards the dancers handed out to their friends that included directions on how to vote. Voting required a $10 donation and could be cast through the mail and online.

On the night of the event, each pair performed for 90 seconds, and the four top vote getters danced a second round. Attendees and anyone voting online weighed in again and the person who received the most overall votes was the winner.

"Although it was a daunting task to get everything to come together, we were having so much fun we didn't consider anything too hard," says Mehrtens. "People were excited because it was something new and different."