Marathons and Dance-a-Thons

Marathons are one of the most popular ways to raise money for a cause. They’re relatively straight-forward to manage, and communities love to participate in them. (They’re especially good for anyone looking to set a fitness goal and get healthy in 2018!) While you can definitely host a good old-fashioned marathon, here are some of our favorite alternatives to the traditional, as well as our marathon-hosting tips at the end:

Color Run (or Color Dance)
Color Runs (or Color Dances) are one of the most fun marathons that you can participate in! (Who doesn’t like getting covered in color?) You can either set up a traditional 5K with color stations or recruit a student DJ and make it a dance-a-thon event. Make sure to tell everyone to wear white T-shirts to the event, so that they can get the most out of their colorful experience. Buying large bags of powdered color and tossing it onto participants at stations works best for Color Runs; handing out individual powder packs to participants and having them all throw the color into the air at pre-assigned times (counted down by the DJ) works best for Color Dances. You can find a complete guide to setting up your Color Run on Wholesale Color Powder. They also sell reasonably-priced powdered color!

Zombie Run
Zombie Runs are another great alternative to the traditional marathon (and work especially well for theatre departments!). Zombie Runs are best done at night and could actually work better inside the school than outside. Try having participants run a course that takes them through all the different floors of your high school. Remember that no chasing can happen on the stairs — primarily because zombies can't climb stairs! You’re going to need volunteers who are willing to dress up as zombies and chase/jump out at participants. Have them hidden at various points around the track so that they only have to run for a short while before returning to their starting point. Recruit student techies to ramp up your event with eerie soundscapes and lighting. (Just make sure that all of the participants can clearly see where they’re going!)

Zumbathon or Dance-a-Thon
If you know some good zumba or dance instructors, then a Zumbathon or Dance-a-Thon might be the way to go! These marathons are hugely popular, especially amongst women. And because there’s less movement involved, you can hold these events indoors as well as outdoors. These events usually last anywhere from 2-4 hours. You might also be able to generate more vendor interest in your Zumbathon, especially from local third-party vendors (like LuLaRoe) that target female customers. Check out our Clothing Swap post for more ideas about securing vendors. You can find a complete guide to setting up your Zumbathon on Holidappy. If you have any friends with parents who work at a spin studio like Soul Cycle, they might also be able to arrange a spin class on your behalf!

Karaoke Night
High schools are the best for karaoke nights because of the projectors in every classroom! You don’t even need karaoke machines. Just hook up a school laptop to the projector, bring up a YouTube channel like Sing King Karaoke, plug in the classroom’s speaker system, and project the lyrics at the back wall. BAM. Instant karaoke set-up. For an even better time, have a volunteer in each room with some LED lights from the theatre department so that they can set the mood for each song. You’re going to want to set up multiple rooms (like one for every 10-15 students), so that everyone gets many opportunities to sing. You might even want to consider setting up split club competition rooms where singers pay a higher admission fee and go head-to-head with their best karaoke numbers to win 40% of that classroom's admission fees. (You keep the other 60%.) You might also want to consider having a volunteer who goes classroom-to-classroom selling snack foods and drinks.

Duck Races
In Duck Races, you race rubber ducks down a local waterway or across a pond. Participants receive a rubber duck that they can decorate and name well in advance of the race. (Buy your ducks from Oriental Trading Company and keep any unsold ducks in the plastic bags for return.) Part of what makes this event so buzz-worthy is the community promotion. Set up a Facebook or Instagram account and ask participants to submit pictures and “bios” of their ducks. You might even want to hold a duck beauty pageant where the duck with the most Instagram likes receives a prize! Ask local businesses to participate and promote by displaying their duck prominently for patrons. The first few ducks to reach the finish line receive prizes, which could be gift certificates to local businesses (donated) or small cash prizes ($50-100). You should charge participants $5-10 for a rubber duck. You are going to need to secure a waterway for this one, so be on the lookout for local pools, theme parks with lazy rivers, or country clubs that might be interested in supporting your fundraising efforts.



When you’re hosting a marathon . . .

1. Get permission.
Make sure to get permission from your principal far ahead of time. You want to have both sunny-day and rainy-day contingency plans in-place, so that means reserving an outdoor athletic field and/or parking lot, as well as the indoor school gym and/or cafeteria. Your principal can also help with advertising the event to students — passing out flyers, making announcements over the PA system, and generally getting everyone hyped about the upcoming marathon. If your principal seems reluctant, then offer to donate a percentage of the admission fees back to your high school to raise her investment level. If you’re allowed, make sure to advertise the marathon both inside and outside your high school. Send out a press release to local newspapers and radio stations, hang up posters in local coffee shops and community centers, ask to pass out flyers at other local races and marathon events, etc. People from all walks of life love fun marathon events, and if the money goes to a good cause, that’s even better!

2. Keep everyone safe.
Make sure that you have plenty of free water available. You can buy bottles in bulk at a store like Costco or Walmart. You may also want to ask teachers with First Aid training (or the school nurse) if they’d be willing to be on-site the day of the marathon. Make sure that you have the course clearly marked out with cones (which you can usually borrow from the physical education department), so that everyone knows where they’re supposed to be running or dancing. Make sure that the school bathrooms are open for anyone who needs to use them during your marathon. You’re also going to need a group of volunteers to help manage the day-of logistics like:
- A registration table with volunteers checking-in participants and collecting admission fees
- Volunteers stationed around the track to pump up participants
- Volunteers passing out water at the finish line and at the mid-way point on the track
- Volunteers to help clean up after the event

3. Secure some vendors.
Visit local vendors and ask them if they’d like to sponsor your marathon. Offer them booths for $35-50 where they can sell and promote their goods and services. Some vendors that might be particularly interested include: local health food companies, local smoothie companies, local gyms and fitness centers, portable massage therapists, local sporting goods stores, and even other local (bigger) marathons. Make sure that you grab some folding tables from your school for your vendors, and mention on flyers that vendors will be on-site (so that participants know to bring some extra cash with them)!

4. Make sure that you get a sound system, microphone, and way to plug everything in.
If you’re doing a dance-a-thon outside, make sure that you have access to a sound system, microphone, and electricity! Nothing can end a dance-a-thon quicker than not having any music to dance to. Double-, triple-, and quadruple-check to make sure that everything’s going to work on the day of. And make sure that your DJ feels comfortable using the aforementioned equipment.

5. Charge reasonable admission.
Charge students between $15-25 to participate in your marathon. You might want to research other local “fun runs” to determine what the average admission cost is in your area. Put the price-point too high, and you’re going to turn a lot of prospective participants off; put the price-point too low, and you’re not going to raise anywhere near enough money. (In fact, you might actually lose money, which is always the danger in a fundraising event!) So make sure that you’re valuing your time and effort and charging accordingly.