Students Help Prevent Abuse, While Dancing Their Pants Off!

It's common on any given weekend to find college students dancing at a party or night club, but it's not so common to find students dancing for a cause. This weekend, however, that's exactly what many HPU students did, as they used a favorite pastime to make a difference.

This Saturday, marked HPU's first Danceathon, which will be held annually, to raise money for Prevent Child Abuse America. The event was put on by an HPU sorority, Kappa Delta, as their annual Shamrock event, which is always their biggest philanthropy event of the year.


What's A Danceathon?

A danceathon is essentially an all day dancing event, where people pay admission to dance and all the proceeds go to help a specific charity. The HPU Danceathon, which was open to faculty, students, and the community, was broken up into specific times for certain age groups: a kid's time, adult time, and college time, but each time was attended by people from other age groups and many college students stayed the entire day, from noon to midnight.

"Dance Your Pants Off"

More than just a catchy slogan advertising the event, participants in the danceathon danced their pants off in more ways than one. Admission for the event was $1 to dance, or a pair of unwanted pants--for a needy family.


Some Highlights

Although dancing was the primary activity at the danceathon, it was far from the only one. The day included performances by HPU's two a cappella groups, the Toccatatones and the Petal Points, as well as D.J. Snow, from Club Triangle.

And of course there's the food! A highlight for many of the participants, the array of donated food was one of the main draws. Panera bagels, Domino's Pizza, Chick-fil-A nuggets, Dunkin' donuts, and Cold Stone ice cream were just some of the food choices at the danceathon.

The Impact

While participants in the danceathon said the food was great and they had a good time, the event was more than just a good time. In addition to helping a good cause, which it did, raising $982, the danceathon also brought different campus groups together.

According to Barbra Guimaraes, a Kappa Delta who helped put on the event, her favorite part, other than the food, was seeing "so much support" from the other organizations on campus, like the dance team, other sororities and fraternities, and the Toccatatones and Petal Points. She said she likes an event like this, because, "It brings us together."

When asked how they thought the event went, Barbra and another sister, Vanessa Hansen, said they thought it went well, but they think it will be better next year, since it was the same night as the N.C. State versus High Point basketball game, which heavily impacted its attendance.