Recognizing the 2024 Dance Marathon Mission Integration Award Finalists!
Miracle Network Dance Marathon recognized top performing Dance Marathon programs at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals’ Ignite: Peer-to-Peer Leadership Conference held in Kansas City, MO from July 18-21.
Engagement and connection with your local hospital and miracle families are an important part of every Dance Marathon organization. It provides opportunities for participants and donors to develop a connection to the cause and a deeper understanding of how funds raised are making a difference in your local community. The Mission Integration Award recognizes a Dance Marathon program that effectively educates its participants and donors about their local hospital through communication and engagement with hospital staff and miracle families.
St. Ambrose Dance Marathon at St. Ambrose University is the 2024 Mission Integration Award winner. You can read more about their efforts here: St. Ambrose University Dance Marathon Receives 2024 Mission Integration Award
UGA Miracle at the University of Georgia
In asking students to meet many fundraising goals throughout the school year, it is extremely important that they understand directly where money raised is going and how they are benefiting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Many students do not ever get the chance to go in person to observe the incredible work being done CHOA.
With this challenge in mind, UGA Miracle hosted their second annual Hospital Night. The main goal of Hospital Night was to create activities and presentations about different services, professions, and wards of the hospital by bringing hospital staff to campus. The programming of the event included 5 hospital staff members (and a therapy dog) who traveled from Atlanta to present on a topics including: the Aflac My Special Duck (an interactive toy duck given to patients being treated for cancer), an aquatic therapy pool funded by UGA® Miracle, Music Therapy, Rehabilitation Services, and Camps. Each speaker or activity was in a different room of UGA’s own Miller Learning Center with prepared programming. Some rooms had games, merchandise sales, or trivia to engage attendees. Some guests also gave out merchandise to excite the students.
Hospital Night was open to both members and non-members of Miracle to expand awareness for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s facilities. This event was also promoted externally to pre-health students and students in different STEM majors to increase the engagement and education to include students interested in healthcare professions. The hospital staff were overwhelmingly impressed with the turnout of the event, with hundreds of students attending each session. Several students claimed that Hospital Night was the most inspiring and engaging Miracle event they had ever attended. Thanks to Hospital Night, UGA® Miracle was able to bring cause-connection to campus despite the hospital being 60 miles away from campus.
Iowa State University Dance Marathon
As a program that is not located close to their hospital, Dance Marathon at Iowa State University (ISUDM) must be extremely intentional about sharing the mission and connecting with the local hospital. This year, all funds raised by the program went to fund the facility dog program at Stead Family Children’s Hospital. Through this funding project they were able to share direct & tangible impact with participants throughout the year.
On Instagram stories, ISUDM shared stories of the facility dogs, pictures, and stories of the dogs in action. Hospital dog handlers were able to join zoom meetings to educate about the day-to-day impact that facility dogs have on the hospital. To incorporate the dogs throughout the year, the program made buttons for people to wear with the facility dogs’ names and silhouettes on them, and had themed days, such as PAW (Participant Appreciation Week).
This effective storytelling has been a very powerful way to share with folks outside of the organization the importance of our work and the difference we make in the everyday lives of families impacted by childhood illness.
Miracle Network Dance Marathon is a national movement, involving over 400 colleges, universities and K-12 schools across the United States that fundraise for their local member hospital of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Students involved in a campus’s dance marathon organization spend a year gaining leadership, teamwork, and nonprofit business experience while raising funds and awareness for their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. The year culminates with a final dance marathon event on each campus, where students get to meet patient families treated at their local hospital, participate in games and dancing, enjoy entertainment, and reveal their annual fundraising total. Miracle Network Dance Marathon programs have collectively raised more than $350 million since 1991.