Fundraise the Roof is Auburn University Dance Marathon’s last big push ahead of the main event in a couple weeks. The goal is to raise $100,000 toward the pledge on just Wednesday and Thursday.
“It’s our last ditch, blow it out of the water, like get as many donations as you can,” said Kaitlyn Conner, AUDM staff member.
AUDM is a campus organization dedicated to growing the Auburn Family’s impact in a meaningful way. The organization raises money and awareness year-round for Children’s Miracles Hospital network, specifically Piedmont Regional of Columbus, Georgia.
The main event is a 14-hour long dance marathon on Feb. 9 from 10 a.m. to midnight, but AUDM’s work began long before this event. While most participants are only involved with the main event, AUDM staff work year-round to fundraise and set up for the dance marathon.
“We were fundraising as early as this summer,” Conner said. “Like people had goals for over the summer and over winter break.”
AUDM’s current mission is to raise $2 million over five years for the complete expansion and renovation of Piedmont Regional’s neonatal intensive care unit, which cares for premature babies.
As they are in the third year of the pledge, AUDM staff have already raised over half of the money, but the hard work is not over yet.
Typically, Fundraise the Roof participants wear balloons above their backpacks for a day with their monetary goals on them, dress up or come up with their own idea on how to draw attention to their cause.
“It sort of depends on the staff member, the way that they choose to fundraise," Conner said. "I did a polar plunge as a certain amount of money. I said I’d wear a tutu to class for a certain amount of money, like different things like that, and as my friends and family hit those numbers, I would have to do increasingly dumb things, which is fun, right?”
While fundraising approaches are as varied as the members who come up with them, the proceeds go to the same goal: helping Children’s Miracle Network hospitals.
Piedmont Regional allows the members of AUDM to tour the hospital so that they can see the physical manifestation of their hard work.
“Throughout the semester, different staff members go just to see the changes already that have happened, and [hospital] bays are bigger so that families can have more privacy with their infant,” Conner said. “We have large bays that can accommodate several children for when families have triplets, which are really nice to keep families together.”
From fundraising to touring the hospital to meeting the children, AUDM is involved in every part of making sure the Piedmont Regional has the tools it needs to provide quality care to its children.
“To hear from little-bitty kids or teenagers who spent most of their childhood in these hospitals saying, ‘What you’re doing makes a difference,'” Conner said. “That’s a really cool thing, and I think it’s really powerful.”
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