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Minnesota Dance Marathon’s Excel in 2017!

2017 was a very special year for Miracle Network Dance Marathon programs in the state of Minnesota! Incredible student leaders were developed, lives changed for families treated at Gillette Speciality Healthcare, more funds and awareness being raised, additional college’s joining the network, and much more.

 

The longest running program in the state, Minnesota State University at Mankato, continued to set new fundraising and recruitment records for their school and in the state. Student leaders at this school started with challenging goals and learned to work hard to reach them. They ended up fundraising over $26,000 for their local children’s hospital and had 211 involved students. After transitioning their leadership team to plan for their 2018 event, they continue to do amazing work.

2017 brought a few, exciting new additions. One of them being University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities! For three years, students on campus held an event very similar to Dance Marathon but for their 2017 event, they decided to officially partner with CMN Hospitals to raise money for Gillette. In the first year, they raised over $18,000 and had over 200 participants; which is exceptional! Three fantastic student leaders (Emily, Marissa, and Kallie) have taken the leadership reigns for the 2018 event and are doing terrific things to grow the program. With a focus on community engagement, partnering with Greek Life and other student organizations, plus creating a Dance Marathon culture on campus, they are certainly setting Minnesota Dance Marathon (MDM) up for future success.

University of Minnesota, Duluth hosted their second annual Dance Marathon event on campus. The students were so thrilled to reveal a total of $4,077 that they raised for Gillette Speciality Children’s Healthcare. Bethany Ill deserves endless credit for the time she put in to making this opportunity available for her peers at UMD. By hosting bake sales, ‘tabling’ across campus, partnering with other student organizations, and more is what led to their success.

St. Olaf University is another school that hosted their first ever Dance Marathon in 2017! Callahan is a student leader that- as a first-year- decided she wanted to make a difference in her community. After spending significant time recruiting and training a leadership team, they started to plan their first event. It took place in April 2017 and was a wild success. They ended up revealing $8,025 and had almost 100 students on campus participating.

 

The final Miracle Network Dance Marathon Big Event that took place in 2017 was at Macalester University in Saint Paul. Like St. Olaf, this was their first ever Dance Marathon. Madison is the student leader that brought her Dance Marathon experience from attending High School in Iowa to her new college. After doing a tremendous job at marketing this new program on campus to other students, they were ready to ‘dance’ the day away at their Big Event in the Spring Semester. Through the hard work these students put in, they were able to raise $9,194 in their first year!

Finally, Hamline University has now begun to plan an event for their campus!

 

There is much to be proud of from Minnesota Dance Marathon programs in 2017 and certainly much excitement for 2018!

 

 

If you are interested in bringing Dance Marathon to your College/University, please reach out to Nick Coleman (Dance Marathon Manager for CMNHospital) at ncoleman@cmnhospitals.org.