Myrtle Beach area talents on display for animals' sake (with video)

Twenty people showed off their talents - from guitar riffs to rap to yoga - Friday to raise money for the Grand Strand Humane Society's four-legged friends.

About 100 $35 admission tickets were sold for the "Grand Strand, Where's Your Talent?" fundraiser at the 2001 Nightclub on Lake Arrowhead Road, said Sandy Brown, the Grand Strand Humane Society's executive director. This is the first year of the fundraiser, which shelter officials hope to make an annual event.

Brown said such fundraisers are needed to help keep the shelter's doors open.

"Our budget to operate the shelter is about $700,000 a year," she said. "The city gave us $250,000 last year, so the difference we have to raise or make, so every fundraiser counts."

Friday's talent show came about because of the talent Brown said she knows is along the Grand Strand.

"We have to get creative especially since the last fundraiser, Sweetie Pie, is no longer feasible because contestants had to raise $3,000," Brown said of the competition in which prominent area men performed while dressed as women. "They can't raise that kind of money in this economy, so the economy has forced us to be creative and have a lot of small ones."

Friday's contestants, who ranged in age from 10 to 57, paid $25 to audition and $100 to perform at the talent show.

Dawn Yager, 31, and Olga Samoilova, 26, twisted, bent, and stretched their bodies on yoga mats.

"We always want to spread yoga any way we can," Yager said prior to their performance. "And we want to win."

They operate a studio called Shanti Yoga in the Myrtle Beach area, as well as a nonprofit that brings yoga to women who can't afford it.

Friday's grand prize winner won $1,000 and a trophy, and the Reader's Choice winner sponsored by TheSunNews.com received $200 and a trophy.

The competition was still under way late Friday.