The third annual LoboTHON, UNM's philanthropic 13.1 hour Dance Marathon, will be held on April 2 at noon in Johnson Gym to help raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
LoboTHON is both an event and organization that hosts events all year, the dance marathon is the biggest event the organization hosts.
Matthew Davoudzadeh, executive director of LoboTHON, said it provides a way to celebrate all the other events throughout the year while raising money for the Children's Miracle Hospital in the process.
"We worked to make LoboTHON more of a celebration of our year long endeavors of raising money and as a motivational period for our dancers to finish off the year raising money for UNM children's Hospital and the Children's miracle Network," said LoboTHON Executive Board Member Cheyenne Feltz.
The main goal is to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals around the nation as well as UNM Children’s Hospital locally.
"Our total goal this year is $62,000,” Davoudzadeh said. “Last year we raised $44,268.94 with a goal of 62,000 and the year before we raised 25,000 with a goal of 12,000. So, we saw a lot of improvement with last year increasing the amount about 20,000 so this year we are shooting again for $62,000,"
Every hour of dancing will have a different theme, he said, and LoboTHON will be working with RedFish Entertainment to bring local live entertainment throughout the event.
Every hour the theme of the music will change from themes such as hip-hop hour, 90's hours, Disney hour, rave hour and many more, Davoudzadeh said.
Being implemented this year is the larger push to raise money, he said. In the past, participants didn't have to raise anything before coming to the event and if someone were to raise $13.01 while dancing they would receive a free t-shirt.
With these past events, he said they saw that without the incentive to really raise money each person that attended only raised about $100 each.
"Now, to attend LoboTHON dancers are required to raise $25 to get into the event, with this they will receive a free t-shirt, free food throughout the event and with the incentive of $25 we can see how much can be raised when the participants are actually needing to raise money," Davoudzadeh said.
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The event will also focus more on what the event accomplishes and on the children that the event is raising money for.
Ben Jurgonski, Internal Executive Director of LoboTHON said this year at LoboTHON they are focusing more on the education of students about what LoboTHON is and what it does.
“Students need to know who they are helping, not just where the money goes," he said. “This year we are making sure to have as many miracle kids (kids treated at a Children's Miracle Network hospital) at the event as we can.”
Jurgonski said they still want people to raise money for this cause, but those people need to know who they are helping, and this year they hope to raise more funds than last year.
“We also want to see more people at the event, more participation means that more people will be aware of what this organization does for the kids at UNM Children's Hospital," he said.
According to Feltz, there will be at least seven children and their families telling their stories at the event, also offering the kids an opportunity to be kids and run around and have fun.
"The point (of LoboTHON) is that dancing for 13.1 hours is hard, but it is very minuscule compared to what the kids have to go through at the children's hospital," Davoudzadeh said.
If interested, more information about the event and sign up process can be found athttp://www.lobothon.org.
Denicia Aragon is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo
