The annual RebelTHON fundraising event raised $259,000 for the Blair E. Batson Children’s Hospital but failed to reach the $300,000 goal set by the RebelTHON leaders as a part of this year’s “Join the R3v0luti0n” campaign.
Jack Patrick Sullivan, RebelTHON vice president of internal relations, said he was not disappointed in the fact that the event failed to meet its fundraising goal.
“Fundraising money is challenging, and we do the best we can,” Sullivan said. “At the end of the day, I care way more about the actions and the events that we did on campus this year and how great our directors were.”
Ole Miss’s RebelTHON is a 12-hour dance marathon that is a part of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals’ national dance marathon movement that involves more than 300 schools.
“This year, our goal was $300,000, and we didn’t hit it,” Delaney Phillips, RebelTHON’s vice president of communications, said. “But I don’t think that means in any way that it was a disappointment. I think that this year had all kinds of challenges and trials that we had to face. Every single event that we had on campus, it rained.”
Phillips has been involved with RebelTHON since her freshman year. She created the 2019 “Join the R3v0luti0n” campaign with the goal of inclusivity in mind and said this has been one of her favorite years of fundraising to date.
Last year, the marathon raised $265,000, outpacing its goal by $40,000, and outpacing the 2017 total by $100,000.
Josh Hall, a junior who has been involved with RebelTHON the past two years, raised over $150 but was unable to attend the event due to contracting the flu over the weekend. Hall said he believes other factors like the registration fees could have affected this year’s outcome.
“I kind of understand why they would charge dancers to participate,” said Hall. “But they also would charge you the $25 registration fee even if you didn’t necessarily want to be a dancer and wanted to raise money for the event.”
Phillips said teams who sponsor the event get free spots for participants to dance but there is no other differentiation between people who want to dance and people who just want to raise the money.
The registration fee goes toward food for participants, T-shirts and other event costs.
This year, RebelTHON wanted to encourage a more diverse demographic and involve campus organizations other than IFC and NPC fraternities and sororities. One new team at this year’s event was the Black Student Union.
Other teams included the Croft Institute, the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Club Irish Dancing and the Louis Stokes Mississippi Alliance for Minority Participation.
“This year, we did not have as many (participants) as last year, but we had more engagement with our participants because we tried to focus on intentionally recruiting rather than just getting as many people as we could to sign up,” Phillips said.
Phillips said that the number of individuals in their Comma Club, those who raise over $1,000, was double the average amount.
Melanie Wierzbicki, a marketing major who participated in the event as a member of Pi Beta Phi’s team, said she enjoyed the event and was proud of the RebelTHON organizers and participants.
“The committee this year for RebelTHON was amazing,” Wierzbicki said. “They all work so hard, and the president gave a great speech at the end on how important it is that we do this. … The unique (people) that are going to change the world were here dancing for 12 hours.”
