Dance Marathon
 

Okay, I know Dance Marathon is a major event at a bunch of campuses across the country, and it's finally coming to Nebraska.

I'm running for Philanthropy chair in exec elections in two weeks, and I have a bunch of ideas, but I want to also do something with DM. I was wondering what your chapters at campuses with DM do. Do you pair up with a sorority or fraternity to kinda hang out for the night, do you help with fundraising by soliciting on behalf of the members as a chapter? Pretty much anything and everything, because our current Philanthropy chair has not done anything to get anyone excited about Dance Marathon and I'm beginning to think that we're going to be not as helpful as I would like us to be when it finally rolls around.

So just post anything fun your chapter has done...

Thanks for the ideas.

I'm on the DM committee at my school, and it's fairly new here too -- just a couple of years. So we're kind of in the same boat as you guys in that we're still trying out new ideas and seeing what sticks.

In the past, DM was tied into Humorology (our equivalent of Greek Sing) and each fraternity/sorority team that was participating in Humo would be required to send at least six of its members to participate in DM. We're trying to get Greeks a little more involved this year, though.

The new plan that we're trying for this year is to try to get Greeks to see DM as similar to Homecoming or Greek Week -- a competition to get really excited about. We're pairing sororities and fraternities up separately from Humo pairings, and the group that raises the most money will get some kind of reward. We don't expect all the groups to get super-excited about it yet, but hopefully as the years go on and it gets more ingrained in Greek culture, they'll get more into it.

We also do a number of other activities throughout the year that, while they're not aimed specifically at the Greek community (a date auction, raffles), usually end up being pretty Greek -- just to familiarize them with DM. The DM committee is about 75 percent Greek, so a lot of our ideas end up being pretty Greek oriented, which is both a plus and a minus.

SandS thank you.

I'm hoping to get some ideas that I can take to my chapter and say this is what I plan to have us do for dance marathon.

For example, over the past couple of years, for Relay for Life, we've invited a sorority to have a Barbeque with us before the event...something fun and simple that at least gets those who aren't walking to come out and get some free food, meet some girls and such.

penn state has the biggest dance marathon in the country. last year we raised over 3.6 million. go to www.thon.org and you can find out a ton of information. pm me if you have any questions!

Last year, our chapter paired up with a fraternty. We hung out together that evening, and worked together on the banner that was a part of the overall competition Dance Marathon holds. (Around here, just the word "competition" is enough to get Greek groups excited. The notion of beating other Greek orgs is quite appealing.) We also think of it as a really long sisterhood event, which is fun. :)

Our philanthropy chair also started a month before Dance Marathon harassing... err, encouraging :D all non-dancers into committing to a time to visit those of us who were dancing. The morale boost for us was great and a several of the non-dancers got a taste of what it was like and want to do it again this year.