“Little dance” to help his friend fight cancer is gonna be huge

Friday, La Crosse Center, dance party
to help Myles Knoble win the battle

This will not be your typical cancer benefit. You’ll want to head to the La Crosse Center at 7 p.m. Friday for a good cause and some fun.

Zak Chaouki, who just graduated for Logan High School, has put together a doozy for his friend and longtime hockey teammate, 17-year-old Myles Knoble. 

Knoble, soon to be a senior at Logan, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and is finishing up his chemotherapy treatments.

Chaouki said he wanted to help Knoble’s family with some of the medical expenses, so he figured he’d hold a chicken-Q (11 a.m. – 7:30 p.m. Friday outside the La Crosse Center) and, maybe, host a little dance.

“We went to Myles and said, ‘Hey Myles, we want to throw a dance,’ a couple months ago,” Chaouki said. “And he said, ‘Oh cool, that’d be fun.'”

Well, “little dance” is not the best way to describe it anymore. The event has exploded into a giant dance party and Chaouki expects hundreds to show up. Add your name to the list, here. Tickets are $15 at the door.

“It took off and we kept thinking of more and more ideas,” Chaouki said excitedly. “And those ideas grew and grew and it just exploded.”

He’s now renting out the La Crosse Center arena and staging the massive party with a $25,000 sound and light show.

“Let me tell you, this stuff is impressive,” Chaouki said. “It’s a professional set up. It’s all in the arena. It’s going to be quite amazing.”

And, before you think, ‘Why not use that $25,000 to help pay for medical cost?’ The setup is actually being donated.

Chaouki says the he’s received help from a number of sponsors to hold the event, including U-haul, Kwik Trip and Coca-cola.

This cause isn’t something unfamiliar to Chaouki. His dad was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, so he knows exactly how the Knobles feel and “the strain it can put on a family,” he wrote on the GoFundMe page he set up for the Knobles.