Another season of Dance Marathon has come and gone. The annual family dinner, basketball tailgate, setting FirstGiving accounts and asking for corporate donations are all over, not to mention the main event: dancing for six hours for the kids who can’t.

Once again this year, the opposing viewpoints toward Dance Marathon are apparent. On one side, there are people dedicated to Dance Marathon, trying to get all their friends to join and going above and beyond in terms of their donation. I know one person last year who raised more than $5,000, which is incredible for a high school student. But there are also many people who are cynical toward the event, who think the money could be allocated more wisely for another organization.

The main cause of the difference in attitudes is a lack of understanding; a lot of people on both sides of the argument do not know exactly where the funds go. Even though I have participated in Dance Marathon before and am in House, I was never completely sure where the CHS funds went until this year. After talking to Dance Marathon coordinator Samantha Lame on the phone, I was informed that they go specifically toward the Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Disease, which supports clinical research, patient and family education, patient support programs, infection prevention programs, sharing faculty findings with peers around the world, providing supplies for faculty conducting research in Africa and the purchase of toys for the Magic Castle Cart. 

The main reason people oppose Dance Marathon is that they think the money goes toward something else. I know a couple of my friends did not participate in previous years because they thought the money all went to buying new electronics for the patients, like interactive walls and Wiis. It’s disappointing that they missed out on such a fun opportunity just because they didn’t bother to find out what the money was really used for.

However, it is surprising that many people who were big advocates of Dance Marathon didn’t know specifically where the money was going either. I asked some people, most of whom said they weren’t sure. Some said they thought it went to a teenage technology room, while others said they thought it went to the hospital in general. Some people thought it went to paying for underprivileged children’s medical bills, while others thought it went to medical research.

This ignorance toward the specific area the funds go to is alarming because it should make a big difference. Researching diseases and preventing infections from spreading in hospitals are much more beneficial in the long run than providing a child with electronics, not to mention more likely to save a life.

Certainly electronics can make kids happy, which can quicken the recovery time, but the situation of a child with an incurable disease, whether in Africa or America, is much more tragic than that of a patient with no innovative toys to play with during his or her stay. Getting treatment lasts a lifetime, while being able to play with certain toys only lasts for the duration of the hospital stay.

We all know that everything we do is “FTK,” but shouldn’t it matter what we do for them specifically? With the idea in mind that all the CHS funds go to the Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases, I will make sure to go even more above and beyond in collecting donations for the kids in the future.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Michelle at [email protected].