$7,822.44.

Bourbon County raised $7,822.44 for the kids.

“Dance Blue is a University of Kentucky student-run organization that fundraises year-round and culminates in a 24-hour no sitting, no sleeping dance marathon. The money raised through DanceBlue is donated to the Golden Matrix Fund, established to support the kids of the DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital Hematology/Oncology Clinic both today and well into the future through an endowment.” ( http://www.danceblue.org/about/ ).

Dance Blue holds mini-marathons throughout the state, and Bourbon County was fortunate enough to host a marathon this year! We call ours Dance Maroon, and we danced for 6 hours straight on February 8, 2019. I was lucky enough to participate, and it was truly a humbling experience. The founder of Dance Blue, Jennifer Mynear, came to speak to us about the purpose of Dance Blue, and the impact it has on the patients and families suffering from cancer.

By the age of thirteen, Mynear’s son was diagnosed with various types of cancer, 6 different times. Within the last week of his life, he requested to raise money for the Pediatric Oncology Outpatient Clinic at Kentucky Children’s Hospital. So, in 2006, the first Dance Blue took place. Since then, it has profoundly grown into an organization that saves the lives of kids across the state.

Our school hosted a mini-marathon, meaning we danced for 6 hours instead of 24. We did several fundraisers and gathered money from generous donors to collect a total of $7,822.44 for the kids. I don’t know about you, but I am extremely proud our little school managed to raise that much money, for the kids. Sometimes, we don’t realize the impact we’re making until we see it take place.

We had 3 guest speakers whose lives have been affected by cancer. One of them being James Tucker, an 11th grader here at our school. He spoke about the challenges he faced while dealing with cancer, and the obstacles he and his family overcame. Knowing we have people within our school system who are affected by this disease is so surreal and eyeopening. After hearing them speak, we all realized we take for granted daily things, such as going to school, playing sports, eating whatever we want, going to basketball or football games, spending quality time with family and friends, and so much more. Those kids don’t get to experience anything like that, because their daily task is to fight for their life.

After Dance Maroon, we didn’t mind being sore in our feet and back, we didn’t mind being sweaty, and we for sure didn’t mind being tired, because the only thing we wanted was for the kids to join us on the dance floor.