A recap of everything that happened at Dance Marathon 2017

This weekend I was fortunate enough to dance at my first Dance Marathon. Having never participated before, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but the experience was truly eye opening as to how lucky I am and that the money I helped raised can impact so many.

Dance Marathon is an event that raises money for Shand’s Children Hospital and the FSU Pediatric Outreach Program through the College of Medicine. This event is split up into two 20 hour shifts that students can be apart of if they have raised at least $300 leading up to the event.  The money we raised this weekend not only helped each of our miracle children, but put new beds in the NICU at Shands, hired a new child specialist, and much more.

The Miracle Children

Miracle children are either current or former patients of Shand’s Hospital and have over come the toughest obstacles that life could possibly throw at them. Each hour, a new story was told about a miracle child — either by the family in person or from a video. Each hour, all the dancers and captains took a knee, waiting to hear the next heart warming story of a child’s survival. These stories are what got me through each hour, because I looked forward to hearing the next story and being reminded why I was dancing in the first place.

The Hour Long Raves

Dance Marathon involves dancing, as the name implies. But besides the ten minute line dance we do each hour, there were two hour long raves. Even though they were only hour, it was all everyone needed to wake up and raise their morale. It helped us dance through two of the toughest hours of the shift — even President Thrasher joined in on Sunday, and nothing was more entertaining than watching Thrasher dance.

Silent Disco

The hours where there weren’t any miracle families were really long. Luckily between the hours of 4 AM and 7AM, we had silent disco to get us through. It was really cool to take off my headphones and listen to everyone singing the same song with no music playing. These 3 hours of dancing and singing at the top of our lungs raised our spirits for when the families came back in the morning.

The Last Six Hours

During the last six hours, there was another rave, and the band, cheerleaders and Garnet and Gold Guys came out to support. There were many more stories during these hours, and the circle to mark the end of the marathon. The beginning of these last few hours seemed to be years away from 3 PM, but while we realized the activities were winding down, we reflected on the time spent dancing and didn’t want DM to end.

The Reveal

This year the goal was to raise $1.7 million. While preparing for the reveal, everyone stood there anxious waiting to see if we crushed the goal or not. As the kids lined the stage to hold the signs saying For The Kids, the energy in the room was hopeful and anxious. When the DM executive board held up the final number of how much money we raised this year, the room exploded into screams of happiness, and tears of joy. FSU surpassed it’s goal, and raised $1.8 million For The Kids.

This weekend was definitely one that I will remember throughout my college career. If you haven’t done DM yet, I highly recommend participating — it’s an experience you’ll only witness while you are in college, but that will chance your life for the better. I could not be happier to be a Florida State Seminole and to have raised $1.8 million For The Kids.