Name: Alexandra Stephanou
Grade: Junior
Major: International Relations and Economics with Arabic and Business minors
Organizations involved in around campus: Dance Marathon, Student Senate, Greek life, Gryphon society
Favorite tv show: Homeland
How did you start dance marathon? Freshmen year I was on the unity committee of student senate and we talked about having dance marathon to help a cause Lehigh students could choose to support to unite the campus. We never really went anywhere with this idea. So last year, I found Children’s Miracle Network which is an international non-profit organization that supports children’s hospitals around the world. The unique thing about CMN is that they never turn away a patient based on aliment or ability to pay. The closest CMN hospital close to Lehigh is Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and that is where all the proceeds raised from Dance Marathon will goes towards.
How can people raise the proceeds? Well our overall goal is to raise $50,000 and so far we have raised 12,800 from students participating in DM. We also got a very generous $10,000 donation form ABM, which is the company that Lehigh uses for cleaning maintenance. People can go online and pay to register and then your fundraising goal will be set at zero. It is similar to relay for life in the sense that you can share your page on Facebook and people can either donate to your fundraising goal or to the overall goal. As the event gets closer the registration fee will go up. It will be $20 dollars to get in at the door and we will accept cash and gold plus. Make sure to bring your Lehigh ID to get it in. In addition since the whole point is to keep moving for all 8 hours there will be a section of the bleachers where you can pay $1 to sit for 5 minutes.
How is the actual event taking place? The event is from 5pm-1 am on November 16th in Grace hall. The entire point of the event is to stay standing because we stand for those who can’t. The first hour will be opening ceremonies where we will have some families of children who were treated at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia speak about their amazing experiences with CMN. Every hour after that is sponsored by student organization on campus such as athletics, MGC, Panhel, IFC, Student Senate, etc and there will be various games and activities going on each hour. The University Production’s hour will feature a performance by KingsFoil (Frankie Munez band). The closing hour will be one big dance party. There will also be club booths and tons of food and music all night long!
Any hopes for the future? My exec board and I hope this will become an annual thing on Lehigh’s campus and get bigger and bigger every year. In the spring we will be opening applications to anyone interested for executive board for Dance Marathon.
register here: http://www.helpmakemiracles.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=1472
Look out for more about Dance Marathon in upcoming weeks and remember #FTK (for the kids)