Written by Allie Henderson
Dance Marathon is not only one weekend full of a couple hundred dancers standing for 26.2 hours. That is a significant part of it, but the people who made the main event happen successfully were working behind the scenes for about eight months before the dancing began on Saturday.
This past weekend, I stood alongside 23 of my sisters in Chi Omega from noon on Saturday to around 2:20p.m. on Sunday. “Hard” is an understatement for how grueling it was, but I could not have done it without the constant support from not only my fellow Chi Omega dancers, but from every other dancer; and most of all, the DM Captains (looking at you, Morale). These people cheered us on, gave endless piggyback rides and reminded us the reason why we were dancing. The Emerging Leaders even gave dancers foot rubs, back rubs and other much needed acts of service on Sunday morning. Bridget Hartig, an Emerging Leader and member of Sigma Kappa, said her favorite moment from DM was, “around 3am when my ELP team was working bag check. We had been awake for around 20 hours at that point and we were all dancing around, having fun with the dancers and just being silly.” This was Bridget’s favorite moment because, in her words, “the weight of the event did not break apart my team, but we embraced the hard work and made so much light of it.”
My personal favorite part of DM was each time a miracle family shared their story. Somehow, hearing the life-altering (and occasionally life-ending) struggles, pain and endurance of these parents and their children made my feet suddenly feel so much better. Hearing personal stories of how Dance Marathon at UF has directly affected, and even saved 75 Miracle Children’s lives, is what Dance Marathon is all about.
$3,230,025.23. That’s how many miracles Dance Marathon at UF made this year. This incredible total could not have happened without each part of the DM machine. A year’s worth of hard work and a weekend’s worth of sore feet was beyond worth it when I saw the Overall Directors raise the grand total in the air. It was surreal to see all we had raised For The Kids.