This past weekend was a big one for the University of Delaware! UDance was held today, March 11th.

From the official website:

UDance, hosted at The University of Delaware, is a year-long effort dedicated to unifying the community while raising awareness for childhood cancer. It culminates in a 12-hour philanthropic dance marathon every March at The Bob Carpenter Center.

This year, the university raised $2,019,210.48–this is the first time that UDance has broken $2 million! Of that, our team raised $9,260! We are proud of what we have accomplished and grateful to everyone who helped us, so thank you so much to all our contributors. UDance was a lot of fun this year!

Typically, each UDance team has a designated Hero. Student organizations “adopt” a Hero, who is a child that is currently battling pediatric cancer. Teams visit their hero and spend time with them throughout the year. Our Hero, Maggie, was unable to participate in UDance this year. Fortunately, she is happy and healthy. Her family decided that UDance was too great of a time commitment, and informed us that they could not participate in October. We wish Maggie and her family the best!

For our fundraising efforts, the team once again hosted a 12-hour treadmill relay! This past Friday, March 9th, a team member ran on a treadmill for 12 hours straight. We had 24 runners fill up 30-minute time slots. As people ran, donations were accepted, and depending on the amount, runners could be affected in different, funny ways. Some examples: for $1 the runner has to do the Macarena, for $25 they were pied in the face, and for $100 they had to chug a glass of milk!

By the end of the relay, the team raised $2,300 and more than 18,000 people tuned in throughout the day! Thank you to those who donated! And a special thank you to our UDance Chair Dan Foley, who was our team captain and organizer of the relay! We appreciate everyone’s donations throughout the year and look forward to UDance 2019, where we hope to raise even more money, for the kids!