This past Friday and Saturday, StevensTHON held a massive dance marathon in Walker Gym. The dance was the first held by StevensTHON and was a major success, making what Associate Director of Student Life Thea Zunick calls, “a pride point for our institution and a future tradition for our campus.”
StevensTHON is an on-campus organization that works with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, a non-profit group dedicated to providing support to hospitals for children with special diseases and injuries. Specifically, StevensTHON seeks to raise money through dance marathons, long dances where outside donors offer money for each hour each person dances. The organization was formed only this past year and faced a daunting challenge in making their first dance marathon a success: how to attract sponsors and raise as much money as possible at a school that has never held a dance marathon of any kind.
However, StevensTHON took the challenge in stride, doing everything they could to attract attention. They went to Washington Street and recruited many vendors interested in making a difference, including Giovanni’s, Boardwalk, and Panera. They then turned their attention to Stevens students, setting up events where students could sign up for organ donation or the bone marrow registry and learn about StevensTHON in the process. There were also “percentage days,” where students could eat out on Washington Street and have a percentage of their bill go towards Children’s Miracle Network. They also had a table during the Club Fair in September, an info session in October, and maintained a social media presence the entire time to keep people updated.
All the hard work finally paid off on Friday. The dance ran from 9 PM on Friday to 8 AM on Saturday, ending an hour earlier than the original plan of 9 AM due to an unanticipated volleyball game. Even with the reduced time slot, the dance was attended by hundreds of students, with over 200 dancing during the peak of the event and nearly 35 “hanging” in there until 8 AM. The dance marathon featured food and other items donated from 19 local businesses, including several Washington Street restaurants such as Giovanni’s, Benny Tudino’s, and 16 Handles. Musical entertainment was provided in the form of six DJs who performed over the course of the night. In addition, five children from local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals came to talk to the dancers and remind them what they were dancing for over the course of the night.
By the end of the night, the Stevens community had proved its dedication to both charity and dancing. Those who coordinated StevensTHON went into the night with the goal of raising $10,000, or maybe as much as $16,000 if they were lucky. By the end of the night, they had raised a grand total of $20,812.01. This is the most ever raised by a first-year dance marathon in New Jersey. Indeed, most schools don’t even raise that much by their second year.
“They exceeded all expectations any of the staff had,” said Zunick, who served as a StevensTHON mentor this year. StevensTHON will have little time to celebrate their success. With this dance marathon complete, they must now begin planning for next year’s marathon and how they will break yet another record.
