If you haven't liked any of my countless posts about the 2015 UNC Dance Marathon in the past few weeks, we're probably no longer friends. In the event that you gave up social media for Lent, have been on a deserted island, or broke both of your thumbs, I will forgive you if you share this blog post, my last UNC Dance Marathon (as an undergrad) in review. I reserve the right to come back as a dancer/motivator/volunteer/emcee/VIP/celebrity guest for years to come.
I couldn't possibly convey everything that happened in a single post, but I have organized my thoughts into brief summaries of every hour.
Hour 1
A "Meet The Exec Board" video featured a lovely 5 second clip of me stuffing a grilled cheese into my face. Super profesh.
Hour 2
My entire committee and the executive board saw my parents before I did because they were running pizza pickups. This is the point where I learned we had roughly 10 boxes of mayonnaise packets. So 9 completely unnecessary boxes.
Hour 3
Dinner is served! After every color team ate, Tina got on the microphone in Gym B and gave me a shout out.
Hour 4
I got my first meal under my fanny pack and Missy and Charles came into Gym B so I could introduce my committee members to Missy of #TheMissyChronicles.
Hour 5
Midnight Magic was fun until I realized I was freezing. So I headed back inside to make sure energy drinks were ready because at this point dancers start needing artificial sugars.
Hour 6
Good Night With Jay Putnam filmed in Gym A and I realized that it is definitely time for me to have my own show. Someone get on this.
Hour 7
My committee started setting up to serve Late Night Snack which involved dumping huge bags of salsa into trays. This made the most disgusting sounds, I may give up salsa for Lent next year instead of veggies.
Hour 8
While serving Late Night Snack it became apparent that I cannot say no to people. Dancers could seriously ask me for chips & salsa, a piece of cake, and a cookie and I would offer them a king size candy bar to round out their meal.
Hour 9
My committee SLAYED our committee dance despite barely knowing what we were doing. We shook it off, there was a lift, I watched Kelly for cues the whole time. But it was great.
Hour 10
Thongy...the exec board's dance happened. It was...interesting. I think people screamed for us more out of obligation than amazement but from the stage all cheers are good cheers.
Hour 11
After missing senior hour I headed out to Henry Stadium for a sunrise walk and finally secured a spot around the stadium to feel like a big deal. 4 years in the making...I made it fam.
Hour 12
I technically missed this mail drop but for 4 years I have had the completely underwhelming experience of realizing my parents DIDN'T buy me one of everything from our merch store. But they were at the marathon and each bought one of my committee shirts...talk about adorable.
Hour 13
We started setting up for breakfast and set out COFFEE for dancers. Coffee is obviously a huge deal at the marathon. Much caffeine. Dancers very happy.
Hour 14
Breakfast is served...after the 5K and the marathon, no one ever say the word bagel to me again. I am the definition of "bae goals".
Hour 15
I chilled in SNL hallway some more and tried to take pictures with my lovely subchairs. This was interrupted when one of my committee members started throwing those dern mayonnaise packets at us. Thanks Kelly.
Hour 16
RAVE ON STAGE. I wore sparkly gems on my face and threw glow sticks to dancers from the stage, confetti cannons burst behind me (after production moved me out of their way). Everything I hoped it would be.
Hour 17
Lunch was served outside and amazingly, we found a non-profit to take the leftover sub sandwiches! We got rid of at least 4 more mayonnaise packets.
Hour 18
I spent this time cleaning up SNL hallway and realizing that we had a cotton candy machine that we should probably utilize.
Hour 19
Vermonster...Ben & Jerry's gives us a ton of ice cream that dancers have to eat with their hands as quickly as possible. Quality entertainment.
Hour 20
We arranged for a surprise for dancers outside...INFLATABLES! Dancers were literally sprinting to the bouncy houses and slide. Meanwhile I leaned against the obstacle course and fell asleep in between blinks.
Hour 21
For the first time all marathon, food was served that I had nothing to do with! Ben & Jerry's came in and served ice cream and SNL debated what to do with all that mayonnaise.
Hour 22
More cleaning. And changing into my polo and jeans again. I look beyond gross at this point. All the dry shampoo and Febreze in the world couldn't help me at this point.
Hour 23
Dancers enjoyed family hour in Gym A and I ripped banners from the walls of Gym B.
Hour 24
One of my favorite parts of Dance Marathon, the "By the Numbers" video played right before total reveal. 2015 was a record-breaking year. We raised $570,561.48 for the kids! In my 4 years here, the largest student-run non-profit in North Carolina has raised over $2 million. #Blessed
SHOUT OUTS
Huge thank yous to everyone who has donated to my
dancer total this year! If you want an embarrassing photo of me,
heartfelt handshake, personal haiku, naming rights to my first child, seriously, just ask.
Mama Meg - Thank you so much for supporting your 3rd daughter!
Grandma & Grandpa - The only donors who actually requested photos of me (thanks Grandma).
Mary &Avery - Thank you for your donations! I know post-grad life
is hard and moneys don't grow on trees. I appreciate you (and the rest of 2014) so much!
Hope & Kelsey - Thank you for welcoming me to the SNL family and the SNLJSchooldyNASTY. I will forever be grateful for your support and advice.
Memaw & Aunt Donna - You both managed to use donations to lure me to church...very sneaky. God bless.
Daddy - Thank you for talking to your co-workers for me and harassing Pfizer's matching grant department. Besos.
Aunts & Family - Thank you for all of your donations and for being proud of me and supporting my involvement in UNC Dance Marathon for 4 years.
Cornerstone - Finally, thanks so much to my church family. Over the past 4 years so many of you have donated, liked my posts, asked about UNC DM or just let me talk about it for hours on end.
This year has been the biggest blessing and I will forever be grateful to have served as the 2015 Supply and Logistics Chair for the Carolina For The Kids Foundation. A million thank yous to everyone who has helped along the way. Now SHUT UP AND DANCE WITH ME!
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Professional Yet Hype
As many of you and anyone who has ever met me knows, I have friends for 2 main reasons. School projects and UNC Dance Marathon. My popularity really skyrocketed this year when I made the Carolina For The Kids Foundation executive board and overnight 13 people had to be my friend for a whole year. For this reason alone I would suggest any high school senior select their college based on the dance marathon program at that school. It's funny because you think I'm kidding but I'm not even a little bit joking.
I have had the honor of knowing and working with 13 of the most driven and caring people I have ever met this year and it will be a privilege to stand beside them at 8:00 PM, Saturday, March 21st. It is my pleasure to introduce you to the 2015 Carolina For The Kids Executive Board, 13 of my favorite people. Are we humans, or are we dancers?
Executive Director - Evan
The Conductor
If you've ever been in the Pope Room you know that the Exec Director's main role is to "meet with some of us" each week. Evan has to keep us all accountable, on task, and hardest of all, relatively quiet during meetings. He also gets at least 10 questions a day from me alone. 50% of those are me asking him if I can be excused to go to the bathroom.
Campus Fundraising - Kari
The Hostess
The CampFun chair is our main Greek life liaison and Kari has set me up with so many benefit nights this year. I will take any excuse possible to go to dinner with friends instead of eating a hot pocket alone. Thanks to all of the bar nights Kari organized, instead of spending Friday nights alone watching Friends reruns, I spend Friday nights out with real life friends and push my wallowing in self pity back to Saturday. Fun fact: CFTK benefit nights are a great way to ask guys out because they pretend it's for charity and you pretend it's leading to a proposal.
Community Outreach - Meagan
The Teacher
Meagan organizes mini-marathons at local (and some not-so local) elementary, middle and high schools. She also came up with a Vacation Bible School push that was totally genius and works on several other local events. CommOut organizes fundraiser FTK trees in the winter and gives tours of the marathon to visitors interested in learning more about everything going on. I have a feeling my grandma will be all over that. And I would be too if it meant I got to hang out with Meagan more.
Corporate Marketing - Christina
The Networker
Christina, or Tina as we like to call her, asks corporations, small businesses, sponsors, restaurants, really anyone we can think of for money. CoMa writes all of our grant applications and organizes sponsors for Kilometers For The Kids and the marathon. Keeping the sponsors happy and the money flowing is what CoMa does best. Tina also passes on to me all of the sponsors who offer in-kind donations instead of monetary, which makes my life easier.
Donor Development - Beth
The Mailman
Beth could probably stuff envelopes in her sleep at this point because DD organizes all of our letter pushes where we send out letters on behalf of committee members and dancers. She conquered mail merge! And leaky stamps! Beth is in charge of keeping the alumni in the loop and connected to our organization. Beth is also the unofficial environmental chair and holds an alumni brunch. Who doesn't love brunch?
Entertainment - Heather
The DJ
What you might not know about Heather is that she is the best dancer I have ever seen. Give her a dance floor, a beat and get out of the way. So it makes sense that she is in charge of keeping dancers hype by scheduling DJs and entertainment during the marathon. Do you know how hard it is to keep 2,000 people entertained for 24 hours? I can't keep myself entertained for more than 5 minutes without a book or television. And not once this year has Heather yelled "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?" I don't know how she does it. Heather is also the keeper of the 5x5, a simple spreadsheet that has EVERY 5 MINUTES OF THE MARATHON SCHEDULED. No pressure.
Event Donations - Sonya
The Giver
Sonya completely organized our Benefit Reception. By herself. Cause she's a rockstar. EvDo is responsible for soliciting for all of the great items we auction off at the BR and dancer incentives. So basically Sonya works to give really awesome gifts, that you have to buy or raise money for, but still. Fun fact: This one time, we tried to raise $25,000 in 25 hours and Chelsea and I had $0 donated until Sonya came and it became 25K in 25 minutes ft. Sonya cause she rocks.
Finance - Landon
The Trick or Treater
Landon's area of expertise is a subject my father would say I am quite well-versed in...asking people for money. Landon pays the bills, keeping a roof over our heads and he goes to the bank almost as often as I go to Victoria's Secret, except he is on actual CFTK business. Landon coordinates all of our cannings, which are a lot like selling Girl Scout cookies door to door except without any cookies.
Fundraising Projects - Chelsea
The Designer
Chelsea is the person I go to when I start to think that the DM section of my closet isn't big enough. FundProj designs all of the merchandise we sell and coordinates dancer fundraisers like bake sales and date auctions. Unfortunately I am not very helpful to Chelsea because I lack what some would call "perspective" aka I fully admit that I will buy anything that says "CFTK" "UNCDM" "FTK" and therefore estimating sales is not my forte.
Hospital - Shakeia
The Intermediary
Shak works directly with all of the amazing families we serve. She dedicates every Tuesday afternoon to Parent's Night Out, where we serve meals at the hospital. Shakeia is responsible for communicating with families and Kid Co-Captains. The role Shak fills is particular important because she is around cute kids all the time and has to maintain her composure instead of asking to hold them all. I could never do it.
Morale and Recruitment - Jean-Luc
The Recruiter
The Morale chair has had the distinct pleasure of always being the weirdest member of Exec...until this year. Even though JL isn't as weird as I am, I like to think I'm rubbing off on him. Morale choreographs our pit dance, marathon line dance and all sorts of other shenanigans like dredging up Facebook photos from 2005. Keeping dancers happy is a full-time job and JL does a great job!
Operations - Logan
The Planner
Logan's job is to us his dad voice to get things done. He deals with the physical logistics of putting on the marathon, all those grown up-y things that give me a headache like reservations and rentals and scheduling and I already give up. Ops also plans our annual Kilometers For The Kids race event which I have had the pleasure of volunteering at for 3 years now because my only other option was to run it. Ha.
Publicity - Brendan
The Social Media Star
Pub is a small army that produces our newsletters, manages our website, produces graphics, deals with the press I'm constantly trying to escape, and my personal favorite, represents us on social media! It was a long battle getting our official accounts to follow me back but 4 years later and I have officially arrived. I even get hit with the occasional retweet. Brendan keeps all this in motion because DM, much like Miley, can't stop won't stop.
Supply and Logistics - Rachel
The Caterer
I'm in charge of all food at the marathon, which will come as a surprise to those of you who read the Hong KONG Buffet expose piece I did a few months ago. Additionally, my idea of a vegetarian option is french fries and cookie dough, so I couldn't have done anything without my fabulous subchairs. My main role is to solicit, or ask people to give me things for free. Unfortunately, trying to get the best deals FTK has not made me any more frugal in the real world.
Stay tuned next week for a marathon recap and SHOUTOUTS!
I have had the honor of knowing and working with 13 of the most driven and caring people I have ever met this year and it will be a privilege to stand beside them at 8:00 PM, Saturday, March 21st. It is my pleasure to introduce you to the 2015 Carolina For The Kids Executive Board, 13 of my favorite people. Are we humans, or are we dancers?
Executive Director - Evan
The Conductor
If you've ever been in the Pope Room you know that the Exec Director's main role is to "meet with some of us" each week. Evan has to keep us all accountable, on task, and hardest of all, relatively quiet during meetings. He also gets at least 10 questions a day from me alone. 50% of those are me asking him if I can be excused to go to the bathroom.
Campus Fundraising - Kari
The Hostess
The CampFun chair is our main Greek life liaison and Kari has set me up with so many benefit nights this year. I will take any excuse possible to go to dinner with friends instead of eating a hot pocket alone. Thanks to all of the bar nights Kari organized, instead of spending Friday nights alone watching Friends reruns, I spend Friday nights out with real life friends and push my wallowing in self pity back to Saturday. Fun fact: CFTK benefit nights are a great way to ask guys out because they pretend it's for charity and you pretend it's leading to a proposal.
Community Outreach - Meagan
The Teacher
Meagan organizes mini-marathons at local (and some not-so local) elementary, middle and high schools. She also came up with a Vacation Bible School push that was totally genius and works on several other local events. CommOut organizes fundraiser FTK trees in the winter and gives tours of the marathon to visitors interested in learning more about everything going on. I have a feeling my grandma will be all over that. And I would be too if it meant I got to hang out with Meagan more.
Corporate Marketing - Christina
The Networker
Christina, or Tina as we like to call her, asks corporations, small businesses, sponsors, restaurants, really anyone we can think of for money. CoMa writes all of our grant applications and organizes sponsors for Kilometers For The Kids and the marathon. Keeping the sponsors happy and the money flowing is what CoMa does best. Tina also passes on to me all of the sponsors who offer in-kind donations instead of monetary, which makes my life easier.
Donor Development - Beth
The Mailman
Beth could probably stuff envelopes in her sleep at this point because DD organizes all of our letter pushes where we send out letters on behalf of committee members and dancers. She conquered mail merge! And leaky stamps! Beth is in charge of keeping the alumni in the loop and connected to our organization. Beth is also the unofficial environmental chair and holds an alumni brunch. Who doesn't love brunch?
Entertainment - Heather
The DJ
What you might not know about Heather is that she is the best dancer I have ever seen. Give her a dance floor, a beat and get out of the way. So it makes sense that she is in charge of keeping dancers hype by scheduling DJs and entertainment during the marathon. Do you know how hard it is to keep 2,000 people entertained for 24 hours? I can't keep myself entertained for more than 5 minutes without a book or television. And not once this year has Heather yelled "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?" I don't know how she does it. Heather is also the keeper of the 5x5, a simple spreadsheet that has EVERY 5 MINUTES OF THE MARATHON SCHEDULED. No pressure.
Event Donations - Sonya
The Giver
Sonya completely organized our Benefit Reception. By herself. Cause she's a rockstar. EvDo is responsible for soliciting for all of the great items we auction off at the BR and dancer incentives. So basically Sonya works to give really awesome gifts, that you have to buy or raise money for, but still. Fun fact: This one time, we tried to raise $25,000 in 25 hours and Chelsea and I had $0 donated until Sonya came and it became 25K in 25 minutes ft. Sonya cause she rocks.
Finance - Landon
The Trick or Treater
Landon's area of expertise is a subject my father would say I am quite well-versed in...asking people for money. Landon pays the bills, keeping a roof over our heads and he goes to the bank almost as often as I go to Victoria's Secret, except he is on actual CFTK business. Landon coordinates all of our cannings, which are a lot like selling Girl Scout cookies door to door except without any cookies.
Fundraising Projects - Chelsea
The Designer
Chelsea is the person I go to when I start to think that the DM section of my closet isn't big enough. FundProj designs all of the merchandise we sell and coordinates dancer fundraisers like bake sales and date auctions. Unfortunately I am not very helpful to Chelsea because I lack what some would call "perspective" aka I fully admit that I will buy anything that says "CFTK" "UNCDM" "FTK" and therefore estimating sales is not my forte.
Hospital - Shakeia
The Intermediary
Shak works directly with all of the amazing families we serve. She dedicates every Tuesday afternoon to Parent's Night Out, where we serve meals at the hospital. Shakeia is responsible for communicating with families and Kid Co-Captains. The role Shak fills is particular important because she is around cute kids all the time and has to maintain her composure instead of asking to hold them all. I could never do it.
Morale and Recruitment - Jean-Luc
The Recruiter
The Morale chair has had the distinct pleasure of always being the weirdest member of Exec...until this year. Even though JL isn't as weird as I am, I like to think I'm rubbing off on him. Morale choreographs our pit dance, marathon line dance and all sorts of other shenanigans like dredging up Facebook photos from 2005. Keeping dancers happy is a full-time job and JL does a great job!
Operations - Logan
The Planner
Logan's job is to us his dad voice to get things done. He deals with the physical logistics of putting on the marathon, all those grown up-y things that give me a headache like reservations and rentals and scheduling and I already give up. Ops also plans our annual Kilometers For The Kids race event which I have had the pleasure of volunteering at for 3 years now because my only other option was to run it. Ha.
Publicity - Brendan
The Social Media Star
Pub is a small army that produces our newsletters, manages our website, produces graphics, deals with the press I'm constantly trying to escape, and my personal favorite, represents us on social media! It was a long battle getting our official accounts to follow me back but 4 years later and I have officially arrived. I even get hit with the occasional retweet. Brendan keeps all this in motion because DM, much like Miley, can't stop won't stop.
Supply and Logistics - Rachel
The Caterer
I'm in charge of all food at the marathon, which will come as a surprise to those of you who read the Hong KONG Buffet expose piece I did a few months ago. Additionally, my idea of a vegetarian option is french fries and cookie dough, so I couldn't have done anything without my fabulous subchairs. My main role is to solicit, or ask people to give me things for free. Unfortunately, trying to get the best deals FTK has not made me any more frugal in the real world.
Stay tuned next week for a marathon recap and SHOUTOUTS!
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Bad Cars & Worse Luck
Remember that time my car broke down when I didn't have my cell phone and wasn't wearing a bra?
Yeah me too.
I was reminded of it last night when MY NEW CAR BROKE DOWN TOO.
Allow me to explain...this was completely out of the blue. My car worked perfectly fine until about a month ago, when it started gradually getting worse and worse until yesterday when BAM! Broken. 100 to zero real quick (30 days, give or take 29 days).
I will admit, this is partially my fault. Percentage wise, I would say I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% responsible, with Obama picking up the other 99. My car radio started flickering awhile ago and I didn't remember to tell my father until a few weeks after it started. When I told him I had been having issues he mentioned that my car had been recalled.
Oh.
That would have been nice to know. It's amazing how if I were to come home at 12:01 AM my parents would consider it incredibly dangerous but if I'm driving around the greater Durham area in a car that's been recalled for electrical malfunctioning, what's the worst that could happen?
Anyways, last night I was literally telling the story of how my first car broke down as I drove my friend Rene home. At this point, it's something I can laugh about. Or at least it was. As soon as I parked my car at my house, the entire computer system shut down. I couldn't lock it, turn on the lights, get my key out of the ignition, use the emergency calling system, and the worst part is I couldn't even listen to the radio. I know.
So, when faced with this adversity, I asked myself, who is an adult that might be awake? It was 12:30 AM. So I called my Aunt Julia. When it was assured that I hadn't butt dialed her (in her defense, my butt has a mind of its own and does knock stuff over unbeknownst to me with an alarming frequency) I informed her that I had called AAA and they basically told me tough cookies. Since I didn't require roadside assistance I wasn't really their problem. A friend suggested we push my car into the road and call back for roadside assistance, but that just seemed like an awful lot of cardio. We decided I should just try to remove the rest of my key ring and call it a night. Upon exiting my car, I was reminded of this ancient invention called manual locks that still exist. I decided to lock the driver's side door at least in an attempt to thwart whatever prowlers may be in the area.
Plot twist. Every single door is now locked. Not a huge issue since I'm pretty sure my computer system is RIP, but I had removed all hope of getting to the 600 plus candy bars in my trunk. (Donated for UNC Dance Marathon, I didn't just buy 600 candy bars, a lot of my current candy budget is being re-allocated to #SprangBreak2k15).
So here we are. I already knew I was a completely unqualified driver, but as it turns out, I'm not even qualified to own a car. Some people kill goldfish and houseplants. I kill automobiles.
Yeah me too.
I was reminded of it last night when MY NEW CAR BROKE DOWN TOO.
Allow me to explain...this was completely out of the blue. My car worked perfectly fine until about a month ago, when it started gradually getting worse and worse until yesterday when BAM! Broken. 100 to zero real quick (30 days, give or take 29 days).
I will admit, this is partially my fault. Percentage wise, I would say I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% responsible, with Obama picking up the other 99. My car radio started flickering awhile ago and I didn't remember to tell my father until a few weeks after it started. When I told him I had been having issues he mentioned that my car had been recalled.
Oh.
That would have been nice to know. It's amazing how if I were to come home at 12:01 AM my parents would consider it incredibly dangerous but if I'm driving around the greater Durham area in a car that's been recalled for electrical malfunctioning, what's the worst that could happen?
Anyways, last night I was literally telling the story of how my first car broke down as I drove my friend Rene home. At this point, it's something I can laugh about. Or at least it was. As soon as I parked my car at my house, the entire computer system shut down. I couldn't lock it, turn on the lights, get my key out of the ignition, use the emergency calling system, and the worst part is I couldn't even listen to the radio. I know.
So, when faced with this adversity, I asked myself, who is an adult that might be awake? It was 12:30 AM. So I called my Aunt Julia. When it was assured that I hadn't butt dialed her (in her defense, my butt has a mind of its own and does knock stuff over unbeknownst to me with an alarming frequency) I informed her that I had called AAA and they basically told me tough cookies. Since I didn't require roadside assistance I wasn't really their problem. A friend suggested we push my car into the road and call back for roadside assistance, but that just seemed like an awful lot of cardio. We decided I should just try to remove the rest of my key ring and call it a night. Upon exiting my car, I was reminded of this ancient invention called manual locks that still exist. I decided to lock the driver's side door at least in an attempt to thwart whatever prowlers may be in the area.
Plot twist. Every single door is now locked. Not a huge issue since I'm pretty sure my computer system is RIP, but I had removed all hope of getting to the 600 plus candy bars in my trunk. (Donated for UNC Dance Marathon, I didn't just buy 600 candy bars, a lot of my current candy budget is being re-allocated to #SprangBreak2k15).
So here we are. I already knew I was a completely unqualified driver, but as it turns out, I'm not even qualified to own a car. Some people kill goldfish and houseplants. I kill automobiles.
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