Duke Dance Marathon eclipses $100,000 goal Saturday

Students on their feet for eight hours raised more than $100,000 for Duke Children’s Hospital through the Duke Dance Marathon Saturday.

DDM is an annual eight-hour fundraising event to raise money for the Miracle Network Dance Marathon organization. Participants in the marathon remain on their feet through the event, although they are not always dancing. The national organization supports children’s hospitals around the country, and Duke’s fundraising goes right into Duke Children’s Hospital’s therapy programs and entertainment resources for patients. Saturday’s event, held from noon to 8 p.m. in Wilson Gym, was the culmination of a year’s worth of fundraising efforts, which collected a total $101,931.60 for the hospital.

“The theory is that you’re dancing for the kids who can’t,” DDM Director Gayle Powell, a senior, said. “You’re standing for the kids who can’t.”

Groups including Duke University Improv, Pitchforks and Rhythm and Blue a capella groups and Momentum dance group performed throughout the eight hours, while vendors like Enzo’s Pizza and Domino’s Pizza provided free food. Following this year’s theme of the Olympics, there were competitions held among the student teams signed up for DDM.

Each hour, DDM’s morale team taught participants part of a seven-minute line dance to a mash-up of recent music. By the end of the eight hours, teams could perform the entire dance.

This year, seven families from Duke Children’s Hospital were at DDM. Children from the families, aged seven and up, told their stories on stage and explained their association with Duke Children’s Hospital.

“It’s a fun and engaging day for them,” Powell said. ”[It’s] something to get their minds off the treatment they’re undergoing. It’s cool to hear their stories, and that really connects it back to the cause.”

Dance marathons began in 1991 in Indiana, after the death of hemophiliac teenager Ryan White, who received a blood transfusion that gave him HIV. Students at his high school organized the first dance marathon in his memory, and the event spread through other high schools and colleges. DDM is one of the newer programs but Powell said she is pleased with the advances DDM has made in the last few years.

“I’m super excited about the traction that we’ve gained this year,” Powell said. “I think we’re becoming more and more of a house name. More and more people are becoming aware of who we are and what we do and what our mission is.”

For the first two years, DDM was held in the spring, but this year the event was shifted to the fall because event organizers found that spring events like Greek recruitment and basketball season made it more difficult for students to attend.

In its first year, 2012, DDM raised $40,000. It raised $80,000 last year, and this year eclipsed the $100,000-mark. Registration for DDM was $15, and Powell encouraged people to at least register, even if they could not attend. DDM also raises money throughout the year through various fundraisers.

With Duke’s undergraduate class of approximately 6,000, Powell said DDM could have easily reached its goal of $100,000 if every student donated eight dollars.

“It’s just hard, people are apathetic, people are super busy, people don’t want to commit to anything,” Powell said. “Saying that it’s going to be eight hours of your Saturday is scary to some people and prevents them from being involved.”

The next year of fundraising began immediately after DDM finished on Saturday. Although Powell and senior Coralie Watts, internal communications director for DDM, were happy to reach their goal this year, they also want the organization to expand until it is ingrained in the Duke culture.

“We want to make sure people really know what dance marathon is,” Watts said. “We want to make it a tradition on this campus and make it something that year after year people look forward to and are excited to go to.”

Watts said DDM’s executive board tried to focus on getting freshman onboard this year, instead of focusing on Greek life like they had in previous years. This year, DDM contacted resident assistants and resident coordinators on East Campus to set up dorm teams to involve freshman, especially since much of the morale team is comprised of freshman. Freshman Shom Tiwari said he raised $80 for DDM and supported the goal of the event.

“DDM is a great example of students coming together to support an important cause in a fun way,” Tiwari said.

Ultimately, Powell and Watts hope to someday have full student body participation in DDM so they can raise more and more for Duke Children’s Hospital. For now, Powell is satisfied that DDM organizers have put together an energetic, positive event.

“The expectations that I have of myself and my team, we fulfilled and exceeded,” she said. “Hopefully Duke students will rise to the occasion.”