Gustavo Medrano arrived at Norris University Center for his shift in the cashier’s office on Tuesday and he saw a line of people wrapping around the first floor office and extending to the Wisconsin Room. They were all waiting to sign up for Dance Marathon.
“I came in a couple of minutes before 9 (a.m.), and I had difficulty coming in through the door because there was a line of people blocking it,” said the Medill senior and student supervisor of the office.
“There’s been more – applications and more people signing up to dance.”
Ben Woo, DM co-chairman
A line had already formed by the time his manager arrived at 8:15 a.m, he said.
Starting Thursday morning, dancers turned in their $80 deposits – up $5 from last year – and then officially registered themselves for one of the largest college philanthropies in the nation.
By 10:30 a.m., about 200 of the 275 dancer pair slots had been filled. DM organizers had to extend the sign-up deadline last year to fill their 500-dancer goal, said Cecilia Byrne, executive co-chairwoman for DM. But eventually 550 people ended up dancing.
It was a “great sign” that there was so much interest this year early in the registration process, said Ben Woo, DM’s other executive co-chairman.
Each year, Northwestern students dance for 30 consecutive hours to raise money for a chosen charity. In its 32nd year, DM 2006 will donate 90 percent of the proceeds from the event to the Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative and 10 percent to the Evanston Community Foundation, a local organization that finances initiatives to improve the city.
“Because last year was so successful overall, there’s been more committee applications and more people signing up to dance (compared to last year),” said Woo, a Weinberg senior.
Dancers have until 5 p.m. today to register, but Woo expects the slots to be filled by 2 p.m. Students can be put on a waiting list.
In previous years, dancers had to fill out their information on a sheet of paper and sign their names outside of the DM office. Committee members later would enter the information onto a spreadsheet, said Byrne, a Weinberg senior. The registration extended throughout a week.
“We’re doing everything on a database and we are having dancers directly enter their information onto computers,” Byrne said.
The database contains contact information for the dancers, emergency phone numbers, T-shirt sizes, food allergies dancers might have and connections to alumni or celebrities, she added. It will be accessible by any committee member from any computer.
Weinberg junior Whitney Gretz made her initial $80 deposit midday Thursday without having to wait in line. Dancers paid $5 more this year to cover the cost of cans and bibs not returned from the 2005 event.
Gretz, who plans on participating in DM for the first time, said she wants to have the DM experience before she graduates from NU.
“I’m going to be studying AIDS and AIDS policy abroad in South Africa, and it just so happens that the DM organization deals with AIDS research, so it’s a good connector,” she said.
To raise the minimum $750 required for each couple, Gretz plans to go canning with her partner and to write letters to relatives, she said.
“My sister got married two years ago, so I have an easy database with the names and addresses of friends and family that we used to send out invitations and thank you cards,” she added.
In 2005, DM raised more than $625,000, the highest amount ever raised by the philanthropy event. Last year’s beneficiaries were the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Evanston Community Foundation.
Reach Marcy Miranda at [email protected].
