Dance Marathon cut attendance from more than 2,000 people during the main event last year to 120 people at a time in interval shifts this year to accommodate for COVID-19 guidelines.
Dance Marathon is the largest student philanthropic organization at the university, and it raised $582,303 for the local Prisma Health Children’s Hospital in downtown Columbia during its event on Saturday, Feb. 27.
Staff members rotated, spending time outside on Greene Street, then moving inside to Russell House where they got to spend time dancing and making videos to send to kids at Prisma Health.
Dance Marathon worked closely with the university, specifically Campus Recreation and Student Life, to maintain campus COVID-19 regulations.
“We got approval from the university to have a shift model for the main event this year, so even though the event itself will begin as early as 9 a.m. and end as late as 10 p.m., our participants are only going to come for a certain portion of that time in person,” Dance Marathon President Grace Lady said.
Participants were also required to fill out a COVID-19 pre-screening form before entering the event, and Lady said the staff had to go through additional COVID-19 training. There was also a live stream option for those who do not attend in-person.
“It was a lot of reiteration of policies from the university,” Lady, a fourth-year BARSC student, said.
First-year hospitality management student Merritt Woodham participated in Dance Marathon with her sorority Phi Mu, and she said she had to show proof of completing the COVID-19 pre-screening form upon arrival to the event.
“We did a couple of things online, so we obviously did the pre-screening, just clarifying that we didn’t have any symptoms and then we screenshotted that to show it when we checked in,” Woodham said.
Woodham also said that the staff was diligent in guiding the participants through the event and keeping everyone socially distanced.
“You were immediately greeted with a staff member who literally led you to a taped spot for you,” Woodham said. "They made sure to set up parameters of where you’re allowed to stand. You couldn’t just walk around freely and just take pictures with all your friends. It was very much 'Let’s make this fun but while also staying safe.'”
Melanie Carter, a fourth-year risk management and insurance student and Dance Marathon's vice president of campus relations, said that some initial hesitations to hold the main event were related to safety concerns about the pandemic.
“There had been some hesitation from the university and some past participants. I believe ... that lies with people being scared of COVID and just the pandemic and the anxieties that surround that,” Carter said.
However, Carter said Dance Marathon hoped the event would bring some sense of normalcy back to college students.
“It’s such a crazy world today, so that was our goal — was to try to give people some sort of normalcy,” Carter said.
In the past three years, Carter said the organization has collected over a million dollars in donations.
When money and personnel are tight, Vice President of Productions Caroline Selinter and third-year early childhood education student said they decided not to require a specific amount of donations to participate in the main event.
“I think in a year of so many unknowns, we just didn’t want anyone to not be able to participate because of their financial situation, because at the end of the day, we want everyone to be able to experience Dance Marathon that wants to,” Selinter said.
Overall, Woodham said the even was moving and motivating.
“The fact that we raised that money and we came together as a school to raise that money was just insane, especially with all the chaos we’ve gone through this past year. If anything, I feel like I got even more out of it because I was able to see that nothing can stop these miracles from happening,” Woodham said.