Hopeful Hearts President and business administration junior Holly Kelly was inspired to give back to the community by helping people with heart defects.
Kelly Trom
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Hundreds of Post-it notes lining Robert E. Kennedy Library’s halls and bathrooms announced it. Chalk art in the Julian A. Mcphee University Union (UU) proclaiming “Dance your pants off!” hinted at it. So what is it? Cal Poly’s first annual dance marathon benefiting children with congenital heart defects.
The Cal Poly Hopeful Hearts club partnered with Beta Theta Pi to plan the event, which has been in the works for a year and a half. Hopeful Hearts President and business administration junior Holly Kelly was inspired when she visited the University of California, Los Angeles’ dance marathon her freshman year. Around the same time, she learned about the Hopeful Hearts Foundation her former neighbors had started. They had three children who were affected by a heart defect.
“We feel that with our time at Cal Poly, we can do more than just school,” Kelly said. “We have extra free time and it is such a cool cause. We want to give back to the community in some way.”
Kelly put the two ideas together and started working on the Dance Marathon that will be held on Feb. 22 from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. at the Multi-Activity Center (MAC) in the back of the Recreation Center.
Sixteen teams have registered for the event, the largest being Beta Theta Pi’s team with 40 members.
Registration for dance teams has already closed, but students and community members can still get involved by purchasing morale tickets for $10 either online or in the UU every day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Ticket holders can cheer on the teams from either 9 p.m. to 12 a.m., or 12 a.m. to 3 a.m.
White Rabbit Productions is sponsoring the event by helping transform the MAC to inspire dancers to last the entire 10 hours. They will provide lighting, sound, DJs and projectors. DJs Travesty, Starane, Lion the Ferocious Beat and Karl Grand will all be performing in two-hour sets.
Food and drinks will be provided by California Pizza Kitchen and House of Bagels.
All proceeds will go directly to the Hopeful Hearts Foundation.
“The biggest thing that the foundation does is early detection promotion,” Kelly said. “The more people (who) know, the less of an issue it becomes. Children will be born with these heart defects, no one will know and then they will die soon after.”
Almost all members of the Hopeful Hearts club either have a congenital heart disorder or know someone who has one.
“Once I started the club and talked to more people, it was amazing how many people have a brother or sister with it,” Kelly said. “It really affects more people than we recognize.”
Besides awareness, the foundation provides aid for families affected by congenital heart defects.
Because this is the first dance marathon held at Cal Poly, the planning of such a big event has brought its challenges. Julianna St. Geme, Hopeful Hearts vice president and agricultural business junior, has been Kelly’s right-hand woman.
“It is a full-time job,” St. Geme said. “You can’t be doing something else and planning the marathon. You have to be able to dedicate people entirely to it.”
Hopeful Hearts entertainment manager and kinesiology senior Michael Ray was in charge of booking the DJs.
“It is definitely a challenge because we don’t have something to work off of from the past,” Ray said. “We have been in contact with the other dance marathons, who have been guiding us to see how they got their sponsors and how they got their faculty to support them.”
Not only is the general event planning a lot of work, but getting the event approved by the administration can be tough as well. Many clubs and organizations have tried and failed to organize a dance marathon.
“Cal Poly faculty have been really helpful,” Ray said. “This could be considered a higher-risk event, just because people are dancing for so long. It is good to see the faculty working with us.”
Though the planning is arduous, the payoff can be huge.
“The proof is in the evidence,” Kelly said. “All of the other campuses that put on dance marathons are extremely successful. I stalk dance marathons all the time when I am procrastinating, so I know all of the details of all of them.”
Penn State’s dance marathon, which benefits pediatric cancer and has been around for 37 years, is the biggest college dance marathon in the country with more than 5,000 participants, lasting 46 hours and raising more than $12.5 million this past year.
The Hopeful Hearts club hopes to make this year’s dance marathon successful so it can start to grow roots.
“Every dance marathon that is successfully started, it usually grows and grows — their numbers double every year,” Kelly said. “We want it to be an every-year thing. I just want it to go forward. If we do it right the first time, I have no doubt that when people see it, they are not going to look back.”