DANCE MARATHON HISTORY

Decades ago, Dance Marathon was an event where the last couple standing won a prize. That all changed in 1973 when the Interfraternity Council began a Dance Marathon at Penn State University. By 1977, it had a set length and was an annual benefit for the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State's Hershey Medical Center.

The Children's Miracle Network first heard of Dance Marathon when Indiana University raised more than $60,000 in only their third even for the Ryan White Infections Disease Fund. The Indiana University Dance Marathon Council at Pile Hospital established this fund for children, a Children's Miracle Network hospital in Indianapolis.

Thanks to the help of students at Indiana and Penn State, as many schools since then, the Children's Miracle Network's Dance Marathon program was born. In 1995, the first year of the program, four schools raised $142,000 for kids treated at the Children's Miracle Network hospitals. The next year, ten schools participate and raised more than $600,000. There are now dozens of schools and tens of thousands of students from coast to coast participation. 

DANCE MARATHON AT MIZZOU

The University of Missouri Dance Marathon began in 1996 as an effort to give something back to future generations.  Since its start in 1996, Mizzou's Dance Marathon has raised over $180,000 for the Columbia Children's Hospital.

Together, the Dance Marathons held in 2007 and 2008 raised over $24,000 for the Children's Hospital at Mizzou.