Reorganized Dance Blue hopes to increase 2015 turnout
HC is hosting a Dance Blue mini marathon Nov. 20th; this will be a shortened version of UK’s Dance Blue in which students dance non-stop for 24 hours to help raise money for the cancer clinic at the UK hospital. HC has hosted Dance Blue in the past, but this year a change of leadership and organizational skills has improved the way Dance Blue is run at HC.
“We have made it way more student run,” Grae Chambers a member of the Dance Blue committee said. “Way more organized and been broken up into separate committees. We have meetings every week to know what everyone is doing; we go out into the communities to get donations and to put it out there.”
Chambers, a junior at HC, got involved because she wants to make changes in the way Dance Blue is organized and planned as compared to previous years.
“I was one of the only three freshmen there,” Chambers said. “We were all terrified but it was really fun and we came back last year and it wasn’t as good as freshman year. Not as many people came, so we wanted to make it better. So we talked to Mrs. Andrews about it.”
Other students felt the need to help make Dance Blue more organized and an event that made a difference in others’ lives.
“This year’s Dance Blue is run by a strong group of sophomores and juniors,” Will Andrews, a leader of the Dance Blue committee said. “Everyone on the committee was either involved in Dance Blue last year or a returning member of the committee.”
The committee has already started to make changes to the way they are fundraising and advertising.
“Mrs. Andrews created a letter and explained to businesses that if they were to donate to our cause we would put their names on t-shirts and get them advertisement space in the Herald Leader,” Chambers said.
Also, some local businesses have agreed to donate.
“We have gotten Greaters, McAllister’s, and Josie’s to either host a night where a portion of their profits will go to Dance Blue, or straight up donate money to our mini marathon,” Andrews said.
Along with local businesses, donating students can fundraise by signing up and by giving contributions. As students’ sign up, they pay a 25 dollar dance fee which goes straight to Dance Blue. As the date comes closer, the committee is becoming more excited to see their work put into action. This year’s Dance Blue has already received a hundred interested dancers and multiple interested businesses.
“We are soon going to hit the pavement running and try to get more people to sign up,” Evan Hays HC junior and committee member said. “We will be making announcements and hanging posters up around the school.”
In the past, HC’s Dance Blue has raised nearly seven hundred dollars and the committee wants to raise more.
“Our goal is to raise more money than any of the other schools, and definitely raise more than last year,” Chambers said, “And to have around two hundred people attend.”
UK’s Dance Blue is a model for how things should be run and taken care of for other schools also participating in Dance Blue. The HC committee is trying to put more of those aspects in place at this year’s event.
“With UK’s Dance Blue, they take very good care of their dancers and they don’t focus so much on the fundraising that they forget the participants,” Andrews said. “We are trying to balance that, so we are getting food donations lined up so that everyone has stuff to eat. We are going to make it as dancer-friendly as possible.”
A Dance Blue mini marathon is six hours of non-stop dancing. This year, the committee has made a smaller committee simply to strictly make a list of songs that will get the dancers moving.
“I am excited about the playlist,” Chambers said, “Whenever I want to listen to music; I immediately turn on the Dance Blue playlist.”
The committee is excited to see how their event turns out.
“It’s going to be rad,” Hayes said.