Where to begin! Dance Marathon at SDSU is an indescribable movement leaving such a powerful impact on everyone it comes to.
Gamma Phi Beta’s Beta Lambda chapter at San Diego State has participated in Dance Marathon for four years. Over the years, our chapter alone has raised over $50,000 and received awards for “Top Team Overall” and “Top Panhellenic Team”. Not only has Gamma Phi Beta participated as a team, but there are many amazing women who represent our chapter on Dance Marathon’s Leadership Team. Alumni Kiara Proctor and Mackensie Miller served as Executive Director 2019 and 2020 respectively, along with other incredible women who are currently serving on Dance Marathon’s 2021 Executive Board (Raya Hijazi, Maya Shea, Molly Jones, Alexis Rivkin, Bella Vallejo, Serena Shaar, Kianna Rezaei and Brynn Blatnick). These women embody what it means to be For The Kids 365 days a year, and have continued to set the bar for our chapter and lead us into this movement.
Each year, our fundraising goals continue to rise. The need for more recruits, more fundraising, creativity, and innovation rises with it. This year, myself and Ollie Gaiser are honored to be currently serving as Gamma Phi Beta’s Co-Captains for Dance Marathon 2021. Just when we thought this year was going to be full of challenges and make us work harder than ever, the women of Gamma Phi Beta continue to leave us in awe. Our chapter has continued to hold itself accountable and start this year off stronger than ever. With more than 30 team members already kicking off their fundraising, we have already raised nearly 20% of our initial goal for this year. With virtual restrictions for team recruitment this year for Dance Marathon, Ollie and myself have come up with a few ways to keep our team engaged with this movement and are hard at work recruiting more dancers. We are excited and continue to look for new ways of implementing new practices to help recruit dancers.
Ollie and I are constantly reaching out to our Chapter members who are not registered for Dance Marathon and continue to remind those who are to share what this movement means to them with their friends. We keep our entire Chapter, up to date on everything they need to know about what is going on in the Dance Marathon at SDSU world. We turn to our Chapter for support in reaching our goal for the year. Each year we focus on sharing the love we all have individually developed for this movement with our new members. By sharing our individual experiences and encouraging our new members to participate in Dance Marathon, more girls are eager to get involved. Many of the women who have served on the Leadership Team have presented at our chapter meetings and shared their personal experiences and reasons for participating in the Dance Marathon movement here at SDSU. We share what this movement means to each of us individually and in sharing these experiences we encourage one another to join and find their ‘why’. Ultimately the more we talk and emphasize the importance and impact of Dance Marathon, the more people we will see joining our movement. Our Gamma Phi Beta chapter here at SDSU has forever been impacted by this movement. With the right drive and motivation for the kids, we know that we can continue to fundraise and recruit more members despite our circumstances this year.
Additionally, creating inner team challenges allows our girls to compete with one another to reach out to friends and family members to raise more funds. We are constantly sending random messages to our girls to remind them to continue fundraising and create our own incentives for push days. We also personalize incentives that are unique to our team keep our girls alive and eager to raise more funds For The Kids!
We dance for the ones who can’t, those who have fought, continue to fight and the ones who are forever dancing in our hearts. We dance for more first and brighter futures. Dance Marathon at San Diego State has impacted far more than the individual dancers. Dance Marathon has forever become a part of our Gamma Phi Beta chapter. Fighting for the kids is not just for 15 hours, it is every single day. The women of Gamma Phi Beta have broken records, made miracles, danced a lot and we look forward to fighting for the kids this year more than ever.
- Jenaya Vasquez-Aguirre, Gamma Phi Beta co-Captain 2020-2021