A Party with a Purpose

What could be more fun than dancing til you drop, eating til you pop and raising a lot of money to help Columbus’ Children’s Hospital find cures and provide services to local families of very sick kids? In February Metro had a party that wore us all out: MetroThon 2010. It was dance marathon fund raiser in partnership with BuckeyeThon (OSU’s student philanthropy group), Battelle and Nationwide Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Over 200 Metro students and guests pledged to stay on their feet for 6 hours on a Friday night. After being in school a full day, it was a challenge! During the evening we had activities to keep everyone jazzed and busy. Students formed teams and rotated through several stations where they participated in open dancing with Metro senior DJ Adnane Rhazzal, games of Twister, Musical Chairs and Dodgeball, created get well cards for kids in the hospital and learned a choreographed line dance.

Each dancer had raised a minimum of $25. The MetroThon committee had also solicited donations of 225 Chipotle burritos, as wells as pizzas, appetizers, cookies, and sodas, juice and water. In addition, over $500 in gift cards were donated from local businesses to serve as prizes to keep the kids motivated throughout the evening.

Another motivator was getting to meet the guests of honor: two children Avalon 6, and Jackson 8, who came and danced and played games and told their stories of being hospitalized for long periods of time. They thanked the students for raising the money to help other children like themselves.

At the end of the evening, everyone came together to perform the line dance they had been learning throughout the evening. Then the BuckeyeThon advisors made the big announcement of how much had been raised by MetroThon – over $8,000! As the clock ticked down to the end of the marathon, everyone fell on the floor in exhaustion and they were very proud of their efforts. Click here to watch a clip of the MetroThon fun!

The very next weekend, OSU students held their own marathon, and our students were invited to attend. BuckeyeThon is 14 hours long! When they arrived at the RPAC that day, they were ushered onstage where they presented the check to the BuckeyeThon organizers. BuckeyeThon raised $100,823 and they said Metro had put them over the $100K mark for the first time ever!