Dance-a-thon how does it work?

[Courtney Shea]

The University of TN at Martin has held one the past two years with all proceeds being donated to Le Bonheur in Memphis, TN. It was a lot harder to pull together than what we originally thought, but it was all worth it. The best advice I have is to make it where not just one Greek group is in charge. Have a collaboration and you will have more involved.

The best way for me to explain how we had ours is through out the fall semester we had small fund raisers using items that were donated to the group. Some examples are Duct Tape a well liked faculty member to a wall, Pictures with a celebrity (we had Abraham Lincoln and then used Facebook to circulate the pictures), and then the good stand by just ask for monetary donations.

Then in the Spring Semester, we raised awareness of the event by hanging posters, creating facebook groups, using Myspace, and our University's campus wide e-mail. We asked our Student Activities Council for Monetary Donations for decorations and asked students on campus to come and showcase throughout the event. We also went out in the community to find individuals that could teach us certain dances that we knew our students would enjoy. (Hip hop, Swing, Line, Salsa, etc..)

The event was thirteen hours long and consisted of Dancing, Food, games, and just hanging out. We charged fifteen dollars per person with awards going to the Greek that had the most participation and then we also asked them to do a letter campaign for monetary donations that night. We had a blast and raised money that went to a great cause.

The biggest thing that I learned was that no dance a thon will be the same and the best thing to do is work with what your school has and remember it is supposed to be fun.