Lauren Roop, House member and senior, works on her homework during class to make time for House’s most busy time of the year. She has been involved in House for several years and has witnessed this in the past.

The CHS House of Representatives continues their preparations towards Carmel Dance Marathon which will occur on Feb. 24 at CHS. According to both speaker of the House Sam Johnson and House sponsor Sarah Wolff, one focus for this year is working on thanking and appreciating dancers for what they do prior to the event.

“One thing we want to work on is event fundraising. Even though we have a short marathon, we think that’s something that could help raise a few extra dollars for Riley,” Johnson said.

Wolff also said she has a similar attitude towards dancer appreciation.

“We’re doing some different things this year and I think that’s important because you can’t get stagnant. Not necessarily with the programming of the event but leading up to it, the first week in February after registration cuts off, this is the first time ever that we are doing dancer appreciation days,” Wolff said.

On Feb. 8, House will be hosting Day of Hope for dancers. According to Wolff, the day will be a time to appreciate dancers for their dedication to dance marathon with food, prizes and other fun things. Additionally, Wolff said that Riley families wrote letters to dancers, explaining how much their commitment means to them.

“We’ve had the families speaking at dance marathon write letters to our dancers saying how much they appreciate what they’re doing for their family and how those funds are being used for their children. I think that’s really neat because it’s personal. I was reading one of them that one of the mom’s sent me today, talking about reliving the day that her daughter had a headache in gymnastics and within 24 hours had brain surgery,” Wolff said.

Johnson said that he agreed with the new ideas and was excited for them.

“We are giving people letters from Riley families who are talking at our dance marathon, they can win some dance marathon spirit wear prizes, free food, and tell them a little bit more about what they’re actually doing to help the kids at Riley,” Johnson said.

Additionally, the annual auction dinner will take place on Feb. 21 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the freshman cafeteria. It will be catered by Biaggi’s and Brick’s Ice Cream and donated auction items will be sold. According to Wolff, the auction dinner is a community outreach for dance marathon. Last year, about 200 items were donated and auctioned off, Wolff said.

“My favorite part of dance marathon is that a thousand students, no matter if they care about Riley or don’t care about Riley, or whatever it is, come together, unified as one group, and for six hours do good for the world and have a lot of fun doing it,” Johnson said.