Wednesday, July 27^th marked 100 days until Indiana University’s Dance Marathon, otherwise known as IUDM. Only 100 more days until the IUDM community comes together to stand for 36 hours for the children at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. Only 100 more days until we get to learn the 2016 line dance. Only 100 more days to break our record of $3.8 million. And only 100 more days to fall in love with IUDM more and more, each day.

July 27th was also known as the 100-Day Challenge. Every dancer was challenged to raise $100 by 11:59pm. When I was first told about this challenge, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to accomplish it. I thought back to my last Stewardship committee meeting before school ended. Committee members spoke about how raising $100 in a day wouldn’t be hard and that we would all be able to do it, but I still found myself lacking confidence in my ability to accomplish the goal.

I’ve been spending my summer at overnight summer camp, which made me even more worried that I wouldn’t have time to put in the effort to send emails, texts, or make calls for donations. My day started with a staff meeting, where I made an announcement near the end about the 100-day challenge. A friend walked up to me at the end and gave me a donation. It was so unexpected, but I was so thankful, and it was what I needed to push myself to raise the $100. After that, I posted on Facebook, sent emails to family and friends, and talked with other co-workers about dance marathon, which reminded me why I loved it.

While I was working hard to raise my goal, I was happily distracted by the constant notifications from my Stewardship committee group-me(s). This is plural because I have approximately four different group-me(s) for IUDM. As I read the messages, I was reminded of the people that have helped me to fall in love with dance marathon, and who help me continue to fall in love with the dance marathon every day. These are the people that would do pretty much anything to raise any amount of money for the kids at Riley Hospital. Their messages and notifications were what allowed me to exceed my goal of $100 in 24 hours.

So as I reminisce on the day of July 27th, 2016, I’ve realized it’s not about whether or not you can raise $100 in 24 hours. It is a day to remind every dancer why we do what we do, why we dance, and why we are crazy enough to volunteer our time to stand for 36 hours straight. The 100-day challenge is another day we get to fall in love with IUDM all over again.

In just 24 hours, IUDM was able to raise $188,128.17 for the children and Riley. Thank you to everyone who donated on this special day, thank you to the committee members who are constantly talking in the GroupMe, and thank you to the entire IUDM community- the 100-day challenge wouldn’t be the same without you.