After 26 hours on their feet, participants at the 2007 Dance Marathon at UCLA counted down the last five seconds of the event and sat down with relief on the floor of Ackerman Grand Ballroom.
But shortly after, though many dancers were half asleep and aching from their 26 hours of dancing, everyone in the room stood and applauded when Dance Marathon leaders announced the total amount that had been raised ““ $330,245.70.
The money, which is tens of thousands of dollars more than was raised last year, will be split among three organizations: 80 percent will go to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and 20 percent will be allocated evenly to two camps for children affected by HIV/AIDS: Camp Kindle and Camp Heartland, said Aviva Altmann, Dance Marathon director.
The amount raised and the enthusiasm from the dancers brought Altmann to tears at the end of the event, when she thanked the dancers, committee members and moralers for their work.
“(It) was incredible. There’s no other way to describe it,” she said Monday, reflecting on the weekend’s event. “There were no problems. I wouldn’t have asked for anything.”
Dance Marathon has consistently grown each year since it started at UCLA in 2002, said Eva Leidman, the media director for Dance Marathon, who also said the event is the largest student-run philanthropic event on the West Coast.
In its first year, the event raised about $28,000 with 190 dancers, and this year 650 dancers raised more than $330,000.
Karina Smith, a fourth-year anthropology student who participated in Dance Marathon in 2004, 2005 and 2007, said she noticed the difference.
“It seemed a lot more crowded,” she said. “You could just feel that there wasn’t as much space dancing.”
But dancing was not the only activity at Dance Marathon.
Dancing was interrupted for various contests, performances and games, and people paused to view the AIDS quilt and listen to speeches from people who have been affected by HIV/AIDS, either because they have the disease or because someone close to them does.
Some of the speakers were children. Some of them had been born with AIDS, others had acquired it through a transfusion, and others spoke of their experience with parents and siblings who have HIV/AIDS.
Many in the audience were brought to tears by the words of children relaying the emotion or physical hurt HIV/AIDS had caused them. And many participants wrote letters or made crafts for children impacted by HIV/AIDS.
At the end of the event early Sunday afternoon, Altmann was already looking forward to the next Dance Marathon.
Compiled by Julia Erlandson and Sara Taylor, Bruin senior staff.