Dance Marathon February 12-14, 2010 AB Overview: Dance Marathon is a philanthropic organization, which benefits the Children’s Miracle Network (CMN). Each year thousands of students dedicate their time and energy to help raise awareness and money for CMN. This year Dance Marathon was a 40‐hour event where teams and individuals danced in one of two 20‐hour shifts in order to raise money and awareness for CMN. Dance Marathon took place on February 12‐14, 2010 in the Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center. The theme was “Sweet 16: Party with a purpose.” Dance Marathon consists of all night dancing, along with many other games and activities to keep the students energized. This year we wanted to obtain a snap shot of dancer and committee members’ experiences with dance marathon. Through this method of surveying we received mixed responses from two different perspectives of dance marathon. About 1,600 students were involved with Dance Marathon 2010 and about 147 students completed the survey. Of the respondents 76% were dancers and 24% were committee members. Many of the students who participated in dance marathon were participating for the first time (68%). The majority of students (91%) said they had fun at Dance Marathon. Highlights:
Conclusion: We found that the majority of our participants enjoyed participating in Dance Marathon; overall 51% of students said they had an excellent experience and 40% said they had a good experience. Over 70% of students surveyed plan to be involved in Dance Marathon 2011 as either a dancer or committee member. We plan on continuing to add to dance marathon in order to increase dancer participation. By increasing participation we hope to increase the amount of money we raise for the Children’s Miracle Network. In the assessment for years to come it is recommended to survey dancers and committee members separately.