East Chapel Hill held the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) district’s third annual Dance Marathon in its cafeteria on February 17.
The event, which lasted six hours, raised money for the Carolina For The Kids foundation, which benefits the University of North Carolina (UNC) Children’s Hospital and the North Carolina Children’s hospital, through ticket sales.
“Dance Marathon has assisted our [the hospital’s] families in tremendous ways,” Chris Sellers, a UNC Hospitals case manager, said on the CHCCS Dance Marathon website.
Students attending were assigned a team based on one of four colors and given a t-shirt to represent the color of their team. They danced for as long as possible while being entertained by several live performances and a DJ.
Junior Cameron Grant, who was on the blue team and had never been to a CHCCS dance marathon before, attended the event because of positive things he had heard about it.
“I came to dance marathon because I heard it’s a great fundraiser for kids, and I heard it’s a lot of fun from my friends last year,” he said.
The Dance Marathon program, which over 450 schools participate in nationwide, was first brought to the region by Raleigh student Michael Bucy, who approached UNC after being inspired by a 46-hour dance marathon held at Pennsylvania State University, in 1997.
Since 1999, UNC dance marathons have been held in the Chapel Hill area. The CHCCS district began holding dance marathons for the cause in 2015.
“By staying on our feet for hours at a time,” the CHCCS Dance Marathon website said, “we show solidarity for those who can’t do the same.”
The Chapel Hill High School student government helped organize the event. Students who were particularly interested in participating in dance marathon could apply through student government to be morale captains of one of the teams.
Junior Zoe Bunch was a morale captain for the pink team and was in charge of keeping her team’s spirits high.
“Being a morale captain seemed like something that suited me perfectly because I really wanted to raise awareness for the Carolina For the Kids foundation, and I really wanted to get people hyped for the dance marathon,” Bunch said.
Many performances were put on to entertain dancers, including a routine by the local jump roping group, the Bouncing Bulldogs.
Sophomore Alyssa Coleman cited the group’s performance as her favorite event of the night.
“I liked the Bouncing Bulldogs,” she said. “That was pretty interesting.”
The Chapel Hill High School cheerleading team also performed. Junior and cheerleader Ashleigh Roberson enjoyed executing the team’s routine for dance marathon’s lively crowd.
“There was so much positivity and excitement from the crowd when we performed,” she said. “We had a great time dancing with our fellow CHCCS students to raise money for the kids.”
Raffles were held throughout the night, and food was served. Students could also write cards to patients at the UNC Children’s hospital.
Junior Nicole Bell, another newcomer to the event, was a morale captain for the yellow team and said she would be willing to attend CHCCS’ dance marathon again next year.
“I’m hoping to, maybe, be another morale captain because that was a really fun role,” Bell said, “but, if not, I’d be happy just to participate in it. It’s really fun. I would encourage anyone even thinking about going to the dance marathon to go. It’s for a really great cause.”
More information about the UNC dance marathon and the Carolina For The Kids foundation can be found at http://www.carolinaftk.org.
