The annual Dance Marathon hosted by UGA Miracle, the university’s largest student-led philanthropic organization, is shortening from the usual 26 hours to a 13-hour event on Saturday. The event, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, has also moved from its traditional venue in Tate Grand Hall to Stegeman Coliseum where it began.
These changes are part of a plan that some leaders in the UGA Miracle Program said at a press conference is part of a larger goal of the Children’s Miracle Network to drive more engagement from the broader community.
UGA Miracle serves as the official philanthropy for Greek Life at the University of Georgia, where it earns most of its participation. This year, it has taken more steps to be inclusive to further engagement at the event, branching out from its traditional following.
Along with meeting with teams from Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council, Lexi Buzzell, the UGA Miracle external director and head of the diversity team, said she met with the Multicultural Greek Council and National Pan-Hellenic Council’s teams to ensure a comfortable environment for everybody.
UGA Miracle has also taken steps to make Dance Marathon more accessible to physically disabled students, such as making the event fully wheelchair-accessible. In previous renditions, students took part in a pledge to stand for the entire event, a challenge that former participants had said was to foster solidarity between students and the Miracle families.
Now, it has phased out the pledge to stand. The challenge was ableist because “you really can’t tell people to stand for so long,” Buzzell said.
The event begins at 10:30 a.m. and ends at midnight, with various events, including a silent disco, a rave and a dance with Miracle kids.
Dance Marathon last year raised more than $1 million for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, despite the two deaths that rocked the UGA community around the same time as the event. UGA Miracle received the Ryan White Award for Overcoming Adversity for its efforts.
Stella Mele, the UGA Miracle program director, said she hopes to see even more participation this year. Though she wouldn’t disclose the exact financial goal for the fundraising efforts, she said the program is always striving for improvement from the previous years.
“That’s really all we can do,” Mele said.
This year, over 70 different teams and over 1,800 participants are helping fundraise for Dance Marathon.
Mary Webb, a former cancer patient at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Dance Marathon committee member, said she is elated by the growth she’s seen in the program.
“Seeing how much growth we’ve had over the past four years and just, like, the number of people we have, the number of money we raised, it’s just, like, significant, and I think that is really cool,” she said.
Caroline Feagin is a second-year journalism major.
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