Dance Marathon officials announced over Winter Break that they will award a free trip to Europe to the independent couple that raises the most money for the fund raiser’s charities.
STA Travel, a world-wide student travel agency, has donated two roundtrip tickets from Chicago to Paris and two nights’ hotel accommodation in a city of the winners’ choice to be given to the top pair.
The unprecedented promise of a valuable prize for the top fund-raisers has some DM officials hoping for a jump in total donations.
Darrah Doyle, corporate relations co-chairwoman, said she hopes the prize will spark a big increase in money raised for DM.
“We’re having dancers try to come up with new ways to raise money, which is to us a sign that they see this prize and are doing whatever they can to get a lot of money raised,” said the Weinberg senior. “We have dancers talking about having $7,500 coming in from a single donor and that’s a huge amount of money for a dancer to have.”
In addition to taking care of airfare and hotel costs, STA is offering special tours in Munich, Madrid, Paris or Rome and will pay for most of the winners’ other travel costs. The retail value of the entire package is about $2,500.
Elaine Kanak, DM executive co-chairwoman, also said she wants the trip to motivate dancers.
“We definitely hope that this will inspire dancers to try harder to fund raise,” said Kanak, a Weinberg senior. “People have been very excited about fund-raising a lot in the past and this will obviously give them additional incentive.”
Kanak added that it’s too early to predict how much the trip will impact fund-raising.
“It’s really hard to tell at this point because we haven’t reached half-money deadline,” she said.
STA Travel is giving a total of $85,800 worth of products to Dance Marathon this year, making it the largest donor so far. Other prizes will be awarded at various DM fund-raising events.
Lori Fradkin, a dancer and former Daily staffer, raised $2,402 with her partner for last year’s DM — the most by an independent couple. She said the prize won’t effect the way that she has traditionally raised money.
“I think it’s awesome, (but) I’m not doing anything differently than I’ve done in past years,” the Medill senior said. “I’ve still sent out a bunch of letters to friends and family.”
Fradkin said she thought the trip wouldn’t distract dancers from the fund raiser’s real mission — supporting DM’s beneficiaries.
“People are still giving 30 hours to dance,” she said. “I’m not dancing because of the trip to Paris.”
Although STA isn’t making a monetary donation like some other sponsors, Doyle said the products being offered are just as useful.
“Because money does go to the beneficiary we would prefer to have money, but in this case the prizes as they are should motivate dancers to raise a lot more money in order to be that top fund-raiser and get the trip,” she said. “I think the prizes that have been donated will help us to make more money, and that will get back to the beneficiary.”
Reach Evan Hill at [email protected].
