Lurie Children’s Dance Marathon Students Attend Virtual Leadership Conference

Each year, students from all over the country gather in a city and spend three to four days networking, attending workshops and engaging in conversations surrounding trends in the Miracle Network Dance Marathon network. This year, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals took the conference virtual.  Virtual Dance Marathon Leadership Conference (DMLC) 2020 took place July 7-10, 2020 on multiple platforms allowing students across the country to come together during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DMLC 2020 focused on sharing best practices and strategies around:

• Diversifying Revenue Streams  
• Creating Meaningful Partnerships  
• Strategic Decision Making  
• Building a Movement 

Eighty-five attendees from local Dance Marathon programs including:

• Barrington High School
• Cary Grove High School
• Children’s Bridge’s Teen Board (Loyola Academy, New Trier High School, Woodlands Academy, and North Shore Country Day)
• Concordia University of Chicago
• DePaul University
• Lincoln-Way East High School
• Loyola University Chicago
• Northern Illinois University
• Valparaiso University
• York Community High School

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the Dance Marathon community. Despite a challenging end to their school year, these programs showed resiliency by turning their year into a virtual celebration FOR THE KIDS: DePaul University Dance Marathon: DemonTHON, Valparaiso University Dance Marathon: ValpoDM, Barrington High School Dance Marathon and Crown Point High School Dance Marathon.

While learning more about virtual events and recruitment opportunities during this year’s conference, students will work together taking what they learned from this summer’s DMLC conference into their planning and execution of their events for their 2020-2021 school year.

After attending DMLC 2019:

• 93% of participants reported that topics and information shared will help increase funds for their Dance Marathon and their local CMN Hospital.

• 88% of participants reported that DMLC had a positive impact on their professional networking skills.

In 2019, Lurie Children’s Dance Marathon programs raised over $700,000 dollars and brought together 3,022 college and high school participants.

Thank you to all the programs who participated and engaged in DMLC 2020.  Your continued leadership of your Dance Marathon program will help us continue to help support our patients and families at Lurie Children’s. FOR THE KIDS!