It might have seemed last year’s million-dollar total would be hard to beat, but UConn students raised the bar again with their 18-hour dance marathon beginning Saturday night. When the total was revealed Sunday morning, it was up about 30 percent – at $1,328,402 raised for children receiving care at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.
Children and family members joined students in dancing and special kid-focused activities. Students wrote letters of encouragement to the kids, and children took part in a ceremonial bracelet-cutting, symbolizing the time when their own medical bracelets will be cut off when they no longer need hospital care. This year’s event also included some innovative fundraising ideas, including a booth where a balloon was floated for each person who raised $53 during the night in honor of the 53 babies currently in CCMC’s newborn intensive care unit. And the marathon was itself the culmination of months of dedicated fundraising activities by students, including collections outside Gampel Pavilion before and after home basketball games, and on weekends outside grocery stores across the state.
