SMU student helps raise $1M for Center for Child Protection

SMU freshman, Abby Argo, helped raise more than $1M for the Center of Child Protection through a "Dancing with the Stars Austin" gala. Argo is the recipient of Texas Women in Business award for leading this effort.

AUSTIN -- SMU freshman Abby Argo helped raise more than $1M for the Center for Child Protection through a "Dancing with the Stars Austin" gala.

Argo is the recipient of Texas Women in Business award for leading this effort.

Argo has been volunteering with the Center for Child Protection since she was a young girl. She had attended the "Dancing with the Stars" for several years.

"I had been going for six years in a row and decided 'I want to be a dancer,'" Argo said in an interview with KVUE in Austin. But being a dancer was more than a decision on a whim -- she and a pro partner trained for over 100 hours between July and December of last year.

Her hard work culminated in the first ever million-dollar payday at the event.

Argo said the key to such an initiative is to find out what you love and working with an organization which supports that cause.

"Just get out there and figure out an organization you believe in wholeheartedly," Argo told KVUE, "and ask what you can do for them."

For Argo, it was her love for children that motivated her to lead the effort.

The Center for Child Protection's mission is "to reduce the trauma for children during the investigation and prosecution of crimes against children," according to its website.

Watch the interview. video icon