When Dustin Ward found out that Montgomery City Elementary is not having a daddy daughter dance this year, he decided to do something about it.

After getting plenty of help from community residents and businesses over the last several months, the Montgomery City resident has put together a daddy daughter dance that is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Feb. 8 at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

“I couldn’t have done it without the community,” Ward said. “I think for me, a daddy daughter dance is important for the girls and for the fathers. As a dad, I work full time. As your daughter gets a little older, sometimes dad and daughters have a little bit harder of a time communicating with one another as life starts to change. These events make a night that dad and daughters get to share a very special moment with one another where there are no moms around or no siblings around. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The entry fee for the dance is free. All participants need to do is bring a flyer to the event, which is only for girls who attend MCE or Immaculate Conception School or are homeschooled. Recently, Ward created the flyers and dropped them off to the schools for the girls to receive them.

“I want this event to be for Montgomery City girls,” Ward said. “If I don’t find a way to manage that, then I’m afraid we’re going to get a bunch of people from other towns showing up. Then, it’s not fun because the venue is overpacked.”

In October, Ward started working on organizing the daddy daughter dance after finding out MCE wasn’t hosting it this year. He contacted businesses such as the Montgomery City Florist and CertainTeed for assistance and posted information about the dance on Facebook.

“Once I called some local businesses, I got really good support from them,” Ward said. “People started to donate.”

Ward had to find a venue for the event. So he reached out to the Knights of Columbus.

“The Barnbridge family actually reached out to my wife,” Ward said. “My wife works at the doctor’s office in town. They said something to her and said they wanted to get in contact with me. So I ended up getting their phone number and I called them and they actually wanted to donate the Knights of Columbus Hall for this event. Really, they saw it on the internet and they reached out to me. I didn’t really have to do a lot to get that. It kind of fell into my lap because they were gracious enough to donate that to us.”

With the dance set for Saturday, Ward will get an opportunity to dance with his daughter Jalynn for a final time. Jalynn is a fifth-grade student at MCE.

“We were at the dance when she was in fourth grade,” Ward said. “I remember they did the last slow dance song and my daughter and I were out there dancing. She kind of looked at me and she was kind of a bit emotional. She was crying a little. She was sad because she said, ‘Dad, we have only one more of these.’”

Ward has been a Montgomery City resident for almost 20 years. He works at CertainTeed.

“I wouldn’t say that I was a very productive member of society,” Ward said. “Now that I’m grown and raising kids, it’s a very special little community that we have. The amount of support that I had, I’m going to get a lot of credit for this event. A lot of people are going to pat me in the back. But it has very little to do with me. It’s the community.”