University of South Carolina Dance Marathon Committee Kicks-Off Twenty Years of Miracles #FTK
On Tuesday, August 29th, over 140 students from the University of South Carolina gathered at Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital for USC Dance Marathon’s annual staff retreat. These students who serve on 17 different committees under 7 main branches; campus relations, productions, mini-marathons, finance, community relations, communications, and partnerships make up USC Dance Marathon’s staff which will spend the next 7 months planning for the Main Event on March 3rd, 2018. At the event staff members spent the evening learning more about what Dance Marathon is and what their role would be in helping to make USCDM 2018 successful. They also got to learn more about the Child Life program and hear from the Tipping’s, one of our amazing miracle families, as they shared their story all in order to develop a connection and a better understanding of the cause. The annual retreat serves as a kickoff to the planning for the fall semester and brings everyone back into the organization after the summer break. It is a great time for everyone to reconnect and remember why they wanted to be a larger part of dance marathon this year.
As we look forward into 2018, this year marks the 20th anniversary of USC Dance Marathon’s fundraising efforts for Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital as a Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals fundraising program. Last year, USCDM raised $703,289 and in the past 19 years, USCDM has raised over $3.6 million to benefit the hospital. Additionally, as of 2016 USCDM began fully funding the Child Life Program. These efforts have helped the program become one of the top 15 fundraising Dance Marathon programs in the nation.
With exciting new events and initiatives already in the works for the 2017-2018 year, we are already so excited to see where we can take our program and what we can achieve on March 3rd, 2018!