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Put on your short-shorts and get ready to boogie - that is if you wanna have some fun on the dance floor for a good cause. Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation (PMHF) has scored the inimitable Richard Simmons to lead its first ever Dance To Conquer Cancer fundraiser on February 12. That's in the afternoon, then in the evening, disco queen Gloria Gaynor will be the guest performer at the Boogie Nights fundraising dinner and dance.

"Our goal is to conquer cancer in our lifetime," PMHF president and CEO said in a statement. "We hope that our Dance to Conquer Cancer fundraiser will inspire those touched by cancer, while offering people a one-of-a-kind, engaging event using the elements of dance and disco! It's a great way to start off the New Year with some fitness and family fun and support for an important cause." 

Taking place at the Paramount Conference and Event Centre in Woodbridge, Ont., just north of the city, Disco Days participants will move and groove to music from the 1970s and 1980s from noon until 4 p.m.

Simmons will lead an estimated 500 registrants to "Sweat to the Oldies" with his style of dancersize, while So You Think You Can Dance Canada choreographer Blake McGrath will lead a dance workshop and teach two disco dances for everyone to perform together.

Two British Columbia rock bands — one unknown and unsigned; the other, one of the biggest in the world — have joined forces to bring attention to the story of a one-year-old girl battling cancer.

Chilliwack’s Pardon My Striptease put its song “Pray (For L.J)” for sale on iTunes to raise money on behalf of its singer’s daughter, Lilee-Jean Putt. The song rose up the iTunes rock chart, at one point reaching No. 1. Today, it sits at No. 2 behind Nickelback’s “When We Stand Together.”

Through the local media, Pardon My Striptease issued a challenge to Nickelback to match funds raised from the single. Nickelback accepted and surpassed expectations by donating $50,000 to the BC Children’s Hospital, according to the Universal Music Canada press release.

“We’re moved by the efforts of Pardon My Striptease to raise money for B.C. Children’s Hospital and are happy and excited to take part,” said Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger on behalf of the band.  “As such, Nickelback will be donating $50,000 to the BC Children’s Hospital and we invite both the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun to each join with us and match our pledge.

Toronto's Cheryl Perera was appalled when she learned about the child sex trade in Bangkok, Thailand during a high school civics class. But she soon turned her disgust into action as she convinced her parents and school principal to allow her to go to Sri Lanka on her own for three-and-a-half months when she was 17 so she could see what was happening first-hand with child sex slaves, and ended up going undercover in a sting operation to arrest a sexual predator.

"I was able to put myself in the shoes of a child," Perera, now 26, told www.samaritanmag.com after a recent presentation at Toronto's Upper Canada College. "And even for that short time, I was able to understand what it's like to have your childhood commodified. That gave me a whole new resolve to do even more."

Perera founded OneChild, an organization to inspire youth to take action against child sex slavery, in 2005. That was the year she also launched a successful petition campaign that convinced Air Canada to show an in-flight video to sensitize passengers to the social, humanitarian and legal consequences of engaging in child sex tourism. More than 22 million people have now viewed that low-budget video created by OneChild.

It's estimated that 1.2 million children around the world are sold into slavery every year, and that two million children are involved in the global sex trade. It's perhaps most prevalent in Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Brazil, but goes on in North America as well.