Our Dance Marathon this past year was 16 hours long of absolutely no sitting down. The different organizations that participated were put into groups with about 1 sorority, 1 fraternity and a non-greek organization. Each hour at the hour for 20 minutes the dancers would line up in the gym and learn a part to a dance that we would perform at the end of the marathon. After the 20 minutes of learning dance moves, there would be different activities for the dancers to participate, such as tug-o-war between the teams, a giant inflatable jumping thing, play basketball, volleyball and so on. We also had Apple Computers bring in the new computers they had out at the time and set up a few for the dancers to check their Facebooks and take pictures with the cameras on the computers.
To raise money, each dancer was required to raise at least 50 dollars and their fee to participate and anything else raised would go towards their team amount. At the end of the event they would give awards to the teams that raised the most money, had the most enthusiasm throughout the night (the teams would do chants and cheer on teammates during competitions).
Families that had children as patients at the local children's hospital came to watch the dancers and gave a few speeches and the children played with the dancers.
As far as food for the teams, each had moralers (people who don't dance) who bring the food and fun items to dress up the different themes each hour (cops/robbers, 80's prom night, candyland, disney princesses, western. . ) Our DM raised over $50,000 this past year. I'm happy to say that my sorority won the most money raised for an individual organization. We raised over $4,000 ourselves, and our whole team (Green Team) won the spirit award!!
It is a wonderful event. This year I am on the executive board for the entertainment committee, which is a very big deal and I am very excited to help plan DM this year!
Some of my sisters at DM...well into the night.