DanceBlue: “It’s the most impactful experience I’ve had at UK”

A few hours into the 11th annual DanceBlue dance marathon, just shy of 800 University of Kentucky students were going strong.

The dancers still had a long way to go until the marathon’s end Sunday afternoon. For 24 hours, the dancers will not sit or sleep as they shimmy and shake toward the end of a year of fundraising for the DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital Hematology/Oncology Clinic. The marathon also helps fund research at the Markey Cancer Center.

Last year, the DanceBlue marathon raised $1.6 million, bringing the 10-year total to $8.1 million.

This year’s event began in Memorial Coliseum at 2 p.m. and would continue until the year’s total amount of money raised for the clinic is announced about 2 p.m. Sunday.

Freshman Jodi Llanora is participating in her first DanceBlue, but her involvement has been several years in the making.

In 2011, her cousin R.J. Hijalda was diagnosed with cancer. He was treated at the clinic, where they told him he needed to go check out DanceBlue. When they were freshmen in high school, Llanora and Hijalda went to the marathon.

“It was just incredible,” Llanora said.

In the years that followed, Llanora became heavily involved in the DanceBlue mini marathons at Lexington Catholic High School. The mini marathons are held at schools around the state and raise thousands of dollars for DanceBlue every year.

Now, Hijalda is cancer free, and he and Llanora are the first freshmen to make it onto the DanceBlue morale committee.

Junior Tommy Daley and sophomore Ben Childress are also on the morale committee, which is assigned to keep the energy of dancers up as the night wears on.

“In 24 hours, there’s more than one wall that you hit,” Childress said. “After eight hours, it’s kind of like end-of-the-work-day tired.” Things “get real weird” about 6 a.m., he said.

Daley said that when the young patients of the clinic come to the marathon, at about 10 a.m., it reminds everyone of why they are there.

“I don’t think I really knew what DanceBlue was about the first time I did it until those kids came in,” he said.

Once the families and patients are there, talent shows for the kids and a memorial celebration of life hour “put it all together,” Childress said. “The last few hours are the meaningful part, it makes the rest of the marathon seem miniscule.”

Spirits were high as the students performed the third hourly line dance Saturday. The dance this year began and ended with Rachel Platten’s Stand By You, but it included everything from country and rap music to Britney Spears and High School Musical throwbacks. Intermittently throughout the dance, students would shout the marathon’s mantra, “FTK,” which stands for “for the kids.”

“It’s the most impactful experience I’ve had at UK,” said Megan Childress, a graduate student dancing her fourth marathon. “You’re constantly reminded that it’s bigger than you.”

Donations can be made at DanceBlue.org.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 7:57 PM with the headline "DanceBlue: “It’s the most impactful experience I’ve had at UK”."