DanceBlue raises more than $1.6 million for Kentucky Children’s Hospital, cancer research

After 24 hours of dancing and a year of fundraising, University of Kentucky students revealed Sunday that DanceBlue 2016 raised $1,631,067.49 to help sick children.

That was an increase of more than $16,000 from last year.

The money will go to into the Golden Matrix Fund, which serves the DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Clinic. The money also will help fund research at UK’s Markey Cancer Center.

Several teams at DanceBlue were recognized for going above and beyond during the year of fundraising. The Golden Matrix Award went to Alpha Gamma Delta, the FTK Award went to Alpha Phi Omega and the “New Team of the Year” award went to UK PEPP.

DanceBlue began in 2006, raising $123,323.16 in the first marathon. Since then, more than $9 million has been raised by DanceBlue.

This year, just shy of 800 students raised money and danced in the marathon.

This story was originally published February 28, 2016 at 7:40 PM with the headline "DanceBlue raises more than $1.6 million for Kentucky Children’s Hospital, cancer research."