By Lauren LevyThe Daily Northwestern

Canning to raise money for Dance Marathon can get old, and fast.

That’s why some Northwestern students have opted to raise money in more creative ways.

While many students raise money by canning or asking family and friends to donate, students throughout campus balance these typical ways of raising money with the use of their particular talents.

Weinberg sophomore Tiffany Liu said she is raising part of the $750 that dancers need by making T-shirt alterations.

Since she started in the fall, she has raised $90 by charging $15 per T-shirt. She sent an e-mail out to several dorm mailing lists to attract potential customers.

“I thought about how other people have gotten shirts for free that were probably the wrong size,” Liu said. “Not a lot of people think about altering their T-shirts to make them fit.”

Students are finding other ways to raise money. Communication freshman Dan Siegel learned how to make balloon animals when he was 10 years old after buying a balloon-making kit. Now he’s using his skill to raise money for DM.

“I didn’t like the model airplane kit my grandparents got me, so I exchanged it,” Siegel said. “I guess when I was little I was really into balloon making.”

Siegel sent an e-mail to Willard Residential College’s mailing list before Winter Break asking if anyone wanted to buy balloon animals for friends.

“I felt like doing something more active,” he said. “When you do something fun and creative, it is more rewarding than just getting a check.”

For three days before winter break, Siegel walked around Willard charging $1 per balloon. In total, he made $26, which will go toward the $1,500 he and his partner need to collect as a Willard dance pair.

“It worked out pretty well,” Siegel said. “Unfortunately I feel like a lot of people end up so focused on the donations (that) the creative fundraising is taken out of it because you are trying to raise so much money and there is a time constraint.”

McCormick sophomore Matt Chastain had a different idea for raising money.

Chastain – a serious cyclist since eighth grade – used his bike-repair skills to fix three or four bikes at $15 each.

To advertise his services, he and his dancing partner have been putting up flyers in dorms.

“It’s kind of unique and we figure everybody has bikes,” Chastain said. “It’s something people would need.”

Besides repairing bikes, Chastain and his partner have signed up to be “guinea pigs” in various experiments on campus for extra money, and Chastain offers ukulele lessons.

Still, some students choose to raise their money in more traditional ways, such as asking relatives and friends for donations.

Weinberg sophomore Billy Ouska said he plans on canning in the near future but that he is mainly relying on his parents’ contributions.

“Both of my parents went to Northwestern, so this is a way for them to participate and give back to charitable causes,” Ouska said.

Chastain and his partner also tried canning wearing penguin and Coca-Cola costumes in downtown Evanston, which Chastain said didn’t work out so well.

“We thought it would attract attention and we had a sign saying that people could hug or hit the penguin with a soft rod,” Chastain said. “People were put off by the penguin thing, and they just ignored us.”

Reach Lauren Levy at [email protected].