The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate raised over $12,500 with its first-ever Dance Marathon fundraiser Friday night, surpassing its fundraising goal by approximately 25 percent, according to senior and event organizer Deborah Block.
"The event couldn't have gone better," Block said. "So many students from the Tufts community came out, so many different groups of people."
The organizers received about $2,000 during the 12-hour marathon. The rest of the money came from the registration period in the weeks prior to the event.
Over 400 attendants and approximately 40 teams participated. Student groups like the Leonard Carmichael Society and the Senior Class Council formed teams, as did a number of fraternities and sororities.
The Senate will donate the funds to the Children's Trust Fund of Massachusetts, an organization that works to eliminate child abuse through a number of programs statewide. The marathon was "the best of both worlds: It brought the Tufts community together for such a fun night and also for such a great cause," Block said.
A number of student groups performed at the marathon, during which at least half of each team's members were technically required to be dancing at all times, although many participants did not follow this rule. Among the student groups that performed during the night were Bhangra, Irish Step Dancing, the Jackson Jills and Cheap Sox. Some dance groups taught participants how to perform portions of their routines.
"It was very interactive, so it was a lot of fun for the performance groups and also for the people who were watching," Block said.
She said the performers added to the event's social climate, even offstage. "It was great because even if those groups weren't performing on stage, they were still there, so it was kind of a coming-together of all different groups on campus," Block said.
Block hopes Dance Marathon will become an annual event.
"I would love to see this become a tradition at Tufts - we got such an unbelievable turnout this year," Block said. "We gotta keep people dancing."
