Dance-a-thon how does it work?

vpboomer · #1 08-03-2007, 12:28 PM

I am thinking about planning a dance-a-thon but dont really know how it works could somebody who has done it before give me so information on how it works and what is the best way to set it up.

Senusret I · #2 08-03-2007, 12:31 PM

http://www.thon.org/
http://www12.georgetown.edu/students...ions/hoyathon/

That's a start.

Courtney Shea · #3 09-18-2007, 06:24 PM

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.

PhiGam · #4 12-08-2007, 03:37 PM

Make each dancer raise $250 in donations if they want to dance.

PhiGam · #5 02-18-2008, 03:57 PM

I just danced in ours this last weekend. 32 hours of standing up and dancing... I have never been as tired as I was at the end of this thing. I did get to meet a few of the kids who were saved from terrible diseases because of the money raised in previous dance marathons and it made it all worth it though.
We had 900 dancers and raised a grand total of $406,129 for the Childrens Miracle Network (FANTASTIC CHARITY.)

ZTA zetahunny · #6 02-20-2008, 10:43 PM

Did any dancers duct tape themselves to the wall in order to "stay on their feet" for those 32 long hours?

Munchkin03 · #7 02-20-2008, 10:56 PM

Where my H&A girls at?

DANCE-A-THON FOR AMERICA

SOPi_Jawbreaker · #8 02-20-2008, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZTA zetahunny

Did any dancers duct tape themselves to the wall in order to "stay on their feet" for those 32 long hours?

Haha, that'd be a good idea. I danced in Thon 2005 and could've definitely used some duct tape during the last ten or so hours. At Penn State, the dancers have friends and family come and be supportive. Towards the end of the 48 hours, you see a lot of dancers leaning on the shoulders of friends and family. Plus there's also morale captains that take shifts being on the floor and supporting the dancers.

PhiGam · #9 02-21-2008, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZTA zetahunny

Did any dancers duct tape themselves to the wall in order to "stay on their feet" for those 32 long hours?

I was leaning on a wall and sleeping.

nittanyalum · #10 02-21-2008, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SOPi_Jawbreaker

Haha, that'd be a good idea. I danced in Thon 2005 and could've definitely used some duct tape during the last ten or so hours. At Penn State, the dancers have friends and family come and be supportive. Towards the end of the 48 hours, you see a lot of dancers leaning on the shoulders of friends and family. Plus there's also morale captains that take shifts being on the floor and supporting the dancers.

The Penn State Dance Marathon is an unbelievably amazing thing to experience. There's nothing like the THON!!!!

juancho853 · #11 05-12-2008, 05:24 AM

Can anyone tell me how this whole process goes. From the inception to the end where all the donations are collected. I would like to suggest this to be done for the start of next semester and would really appreciate any advice as to how to make this philanthropy even as successful as it sounds. Thank you!

PANTHERTEKE · #12 05-13-2008, 06:43 PM

Damn 32 and 48 hours??
I can't imagine be up for that long... 25 hours was bad enough for me.

AlphaO_aly · #13 07-01-2008, 02:43 AM

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.

AlphaO_aly · #14 07-01-2008, 03:00 AM

Here are some pictures, maybe you can get a few idea from looking at them as to how it went!

Some of the dancers learning the new moves at the hour!

More dancers learning the moves. The choreographers on stage teaching it!!

All the different teams learning moves.

The final 20 minutes. We got to (finally) sit down to watch a slide show of pictures captured from the past 16 hours.

the inflatable jumpy thing

And last but not least, Apple Inc. They even brought corn hole for the dancers to play!

BGKA · #15 02-16-2009, 06:38 PM

I'm throwing up BGSU's DM site: <40 days
http://www.bgdancemarathon.com/

In addition to events put on by the fundraising chair, we sign up at:
http://www.kidsmiracles.org/Page.aspx?pid=872&srcid=872

Which allows us to give a website out to people so if they want to donate online instead of just writing a check they can with ease.