While Penn State rallied together to dance the weekend away in the name of stopping childhood cancer, students at another school across the country also had their dancing shoes on.
UCLA also held a dance-thon this weekend and raised a record-breaking total of $451,144.03, surpassing last year’s by more than $40,000.
Participants were holding the 11th annual Dance Marathon to combat pediatric AIDS.
Participating dancers sat down for the first time in more than a day at around 1 p.m. on Sunday after 26 hours of dancing. A total of 837 dancers had completed the full time, while hundreds more participated in three-hour shifts as cheerleaders throughout the day and night.
Jake Glaser, whose mother Elizabeth is the namesake of the nonprofit Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, addressed the crowd before the final total was revealed.
“This is the most people I’ve seen in this room,” Glaser said, tears in his eyes. “My mother was a big fan of dancing… I want to thank everyone here for embodying that.”
“There are so many lives you are changing today,” he said.
Bank of the West, one of the event’s sponsors, presented organizers with a $25,000 check. Over the past 11 years, Dance Marathon at UCLA has raised more than $3 million.
Back across the country, Penn State raised $10,686,924, shattering last year’s record of $9.56 million bringing THON’s cumulative contribution to the Four Diamonds Fund to over $78 million.
The Four Diamonds Fund helps children at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital by supporting them and their families and with research.
