Dance Marathon

You Can Dance If You Want To

UGA Miracle Dance Marathon is one of the most popular philanthropy events on campus. Members of Miracle come together and stay on their feet for 24 hours dancing, singing, and fundraising for local kids that are currently being treated by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. The motto of the Dance Marathon is: “We are students united by one mission – to help sick and injured kids in our local community get the care they need. We are united around kids and families from our local children’s hospital who need our support. These sick kids need our help.”

College kids who rally around this organization spend a lot of time preparing for the Dance Marathon by building relationships with the patients of the Children’s Hospital and their families through various activities and events. The UGA Miracle Network has been in operation since 1995 and in 2017, they raised $1,352,705.17 and became Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s largest scholastic donor.

The annual Dance Marathon in late February is their last fundraising event of the year and is without a doubt the biggest. This 24 hour Marathon brings the students of UGA, the members of Miracle, and the families of Miracle together to dance, watch performances, and celebrate the funds raised by students at the University for the children in the community.

During the Dance Marathon, students that are members of the organization will be all over social media asking for donations to go straight to the children at the event. This is a very cool way to bring involvement outside of Athens and allow for parents, grandparents, friends, and neighbors to become attached to the organization and children seeking treatment. When you start seeing hashtags and posts with #UGAMiracle, #GiveTheGiftofGrowingUp, #FTK, or #ForTheKids, you will know it is getting close to UGA Dance Marathon time.

What’s special about UGA Miracle’s Dance Marathon this year is that it is the 25th anniversary of Miracle being on UGA’s campus. For this special milestone, they have created hashtags #IgniteTheLight25 and #BeyondLimits to hone in on their milestone goal of raising more money this year than ever before.

They call for involvement from as many student organizations as possible on campus, but their biggest on-campus ally is Greek Life. Panhellenic Council, Interfraternity Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and Multicultural Greek Council all came together and named Miracle the official philanthropy of Greek Life and do fundraising competitions throughout the school year throughout the organizations within the 4 councils. The biggest and closest event to the Dance Marathon is known as the President’s Day Challenge, where each president of each sorority and fraternity makes it their mission to raise the most money out of all the Greek Organizations on campus in 24 hours. Last year’s President’s Day Challenge was won by the sorority Phi Mu and the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon.

In short, most students at UGA are either indirectly or directly involved and impacted by UGA Miracle and the Dance Marathon at some point during their time at UGA. It is one of the most successful philanthropic organizations on campus and allows students to interact with and help children in need – is there anything better than that??

To stay up to date on Dance Marathon, follow them on their social media accounts:

• Instagram: @ugamiracle
• Twitter: @UGAMiracle
• Facebook: UGA Miracle

Madeleine Morris, UGA Intern

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