House members meet in the freshmen cafeteria during SRT. The next House meeting will be Feb. 15

According to speaker of the House Neil-Walker Simmons and Cabinet sponsor Sarah Wolff, Cabinet will spend most of its time preparing for its biggest event of the year, Dance Marathon (DM).

Simmons said, “The best event of the year: (DM). It is a six-hour event from 4 to 10 p.m. (on Feb. 23) in the Freshman Cafeteria (where participants) dance to raise awareness to kids at Riley, hear Riley stories, and at the end, show the total amount raise for Riley that year.”

Although this is an annual event, Wolff said Cabinet members have made some changes this year to make it different from the year before, some of which include inviting a staff member to professionally DJ the “hype” portion of the event when participants dance freely and having new Riley speakers share their stories at the event.

“What’s really cool about our Riley speakers this year is that one of our students who is our Riley Development Chairperson is a Riley kid herself, and she has personally recruited all of these people. Normally, we’re getting this information from Riley Hospital, of people who have put their name in and said they want to speak, but these are personal connections, people that she has met through her treatment at Riley Hospital, so almost all of them will be totally new,” Wolff said. “A lot of years we have repeats because people want to come back and be involved in the program, which is awesome, we like that, but we also like to hear new stories for our dancers to keep them motivated, especially ones that have danced for four years, and they’re starting to hear some of the same ones. We also have CHS students too that are being treated at Riley who will be speaking as well.”

Prior to Feb. 23, however, Cabinet will raise as much money for Riley in three ways.

First, members will sell biscuit Chick-fil-A sandwiches during late start on Feb. 13, which Cabinet rescheduled as a result of the snow days during the week of Jan. 27.

“When we get frustrated that we have to cancel things, and that the weather affects the participation of some of our events from our student body and community, I, myself, always try to focus on, and tell my students to focus on, ‘You’re losing sight of who you’re serving.’ The stuff that (the Riley Kids are) facing and the challenges that they run into are a lot greater than a snow day and an event that has to deal with weather,” Wolff said. “I’m really proud of my kids here because they took that time to work on their personal fundraising. They got out in the community, like the morning that snowed, they went and shoveled driveways for donations. When it was super nice those couple of days, they went out in the community and asked donations door-to-door by canning in the neighborhoods that we haven’t been to yet and gave information about (DM) and what we’re doing. They took advantage of (the school cancellations).”

On the same day, Feb. 13, Cabinet members will help anyone who has their DM page set up to send out their link during SRT in the Freshman Cafeteria and after school in C123, which is known as “Push Day”.

Finally, Cabinet will organize the annual auction dinner, which is a community event, that will occur on Feb. 20 from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Freshman Cafeteria.

Simmons said, “(There will be a) pasta dinner with casino games and auction items to bid on. (People who are interested to go) can sign-up online for $7 or $10 at the gate.”