Hundreds of University of Kentucky (UK) students can say they danced the weekend away for a very good cause.
DanceBlue is the University of Kentucky’s 24-hour no-sitting, no-sleeping dance marathon that benefits the Golden Matrix Fund and the DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Clinic.
Recently, DanceBlue chairs and committee members revealed the 2016 grand fundraising total of $1,631,067.49 to the nearly 800 student participants and crowd of supporters.
“Pediatric cancer patients are definitely not fighting the battle alone,” said R.J. Hijalda, a UK freshman and cancer survivor who served on the Morale Committee for DanceBlue 2016. “Even if they think they are, there are hundreds even thousands of other kids, or other people in the world supporting them in their battle. I know what they’re going through, what they have to battle every day. The students at DanceBlue stand up for 24 hours to simulate the pain and the hardships that the kids have to go through so that they have a little sense of what they have to go through every day, so they’re definitely not alone in their fight with cancer.”
With this year’s total, DanceBlue has contributed $9.8 million since 2006 to the Golden Matrix Fund and the DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Clinic.
For more information about DanceBlue, visit www.danceblue.org.
This article was adapted from information provided by UK.