NSU’s new club, Dance Marathon, will host the first ever RazorThon here at NSU, a 13.1 hour night full of fun, food, and games. It will be held from Feb. 16 to 17 in the NSU Recplex.
Chris Chookagian, the executive director of Dance Marathon at Nova Southeastern University said, “We’ve been planning this since March of last year and we officially became an RSO [registered student organization] over the summer. Our donor drive went live July 25, and within a week we made our first thousand dollars. At this point, we are 47 percent of the way to our initial goal of $13,100.”
The RazorThon will benefit the Children’s Miracle Network, a network of about 170 hospitals around the United States and Canada. There are 300 colleges and universities which participate in Dance Marathon. All the money that each school raises goes directly to the nearest hospital. Here at NSU, the event will benefit the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital of Miami.
To register, you can find the link in the bios @razorthon on Twitter and Instagram. The link leads directly to the donor drive page. There’s a $10 registration fee, all the proceeds goes towards the fundraising for the children’s hospital. When you register you will be asked to join a team. The generic teams are blue and white but there are also teams for greek life, an athletics team for athletes, the Mastii team, Cozy Corners, and some of the Razors Edge programs as well.
When you sign up on the donor drive you get your own personal fundraising page. It comes with a generic story about what dance marathon is and why they raise money, but you can go in and customize it to yourself. All you have to do it share the link to your page. You can connect it to your facebook, twitter, linkedin and other social media platforms.
The minimum amount each participant has to raise is $131. Katelyn Lanciano, a junior and the Dance Relations Manager for Dance Marathon at NSU said, “ I know that scares some people to raise $131 but based on the number of registrants, we will be able to meet our goal of $13,100. So don’t be scared, there are plenty of ways to fundraise. It’s actually super easy.”
You can register at any time from now until the week before the event, but the sooner you sign up, the longer you have to raise the minimum amount required in order to participate.
The main way to fundraise is by sending the donation link to family and friends. “There are lots of different ways to make fundraising fun. You can post an image with balloons and tell people to pop the balloons with one dollar, five dollars, or $10.” said Lanciano. There will also be outside fundraisers at restaurants in the area, bake sales and other fundraiers in the UC.
“It’s pretty much gonna be a huge party. That’s the best way to describe it,” said Lanciano. “A lot of people get worried that it is about dancing but [even] the t-shirts associated with the event say [things] like “ugly dancing saves lives.” It’s more about the cause and just bringing people together to lift moral.” The way for it to feel even more exciting is for everyone to register with friends so that no one is alone.
“It’s a movement started by students, run by students, hoping that one day it will be the largest philanthropy on campus,” said Chookagian.
For more information, you can reach out to Chris Chookagian at cc2890@mynsu.nova.edu or follow @razorthon on instagram, facebook, and twitter. They hope to see you all there!
