{"id":5261,"date":"2025-05-01T16:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T16:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/?p=5261"},"modified":"2025-05-01T16:02:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T16:02:20","slug":"sems-13th-annual-dance-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/2025\/05\/01\/sems-13th-annual-dance-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Sem\u2019s 13th Annual Dance Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Izzy Shoemaker \u201826<\/em><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The charity Dance Marathon is a beloved tradition at SEM. This year marked the 13th year of \u201cSemDM\u201d. SemDM is the largest student-run organization at SEM, and certainly a fan-favorite event. Throughout the year, executives and committee members run several fundraisers and events, all culminating with a dance marathon in April. This year the team put on a sweatshirt sale, a Powderpuff football game, and a car wash to help raise money and awareness for the Children\u2019s Hospital.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Families Committee Executives, Mirabaai Reitsma \u201826 and Ellie Scullion \u201825 were thrilled to be working with Sem\u2019s biggest group of Miracles Children attendees in event history. Reitsma said, \u201cThis year we all knew we really wanted to focus on the families at the Janet Weis Children\u2019s Hospital. We actually invited ten kids to the event, which is double the attendance of last year. We couldn\u2019t be more happy that we did. Seeing the kids at the event is always the best part.\u201d The Sem student body also showed up big time to the event, from 12-7pm the gym was jam-packed with students, day and boarding, of all grades.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The event included lip-sync battles between SEM students, JustDance breaks, and performances from the incredible Miracle Children. Each child also had a segment of the day dedicated to them and their journey in the Janet Weis Children\u2019s Hospital and through the Miracle Network. The events committee was sure to leave enough time in the schedule for the highly anticipated faculty pies and tape a teacher. This year six faculty members volunteered to be pied by their students: Mr. Cruz, Ms. Dohn, Ms. Rossi, Mrs. Stretanski, Ms. Barton, and Rev. Carrick. Mr. Kersey also got in on the action, getting taped to the wall of the Blue Gym.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fundraising Committee Executive, Maya Gross \u201826, said, \u201cThis event is so special, because everyone at the school is so supportive and involved. And it\u2019s really cool to be able to have so much fun while supporting such an amazing cause, and it\u2019s just incredible to see everyone rally around it.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, the cause is more important than ever, as Janet Weis lost funding that they usually can count on. Through the Miracle Network, funds raised directly contribute to renovations, new technology, and life-saving equipment in the hospital. In total, SemDM raised an outstanding $32,801 for the Janet Weis Children\u2019s Hospital.\u00a0<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Izzy Shoemaker \u201826 The charity Dance Marathon is a beloved tradition at SEM. This year marked the 13th year of \u201cSemDM\u201d. SemDM is the largest student-run organization at SEM, <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/2025\/05\/01\/sems-13th-annual-dance-marathon\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5262,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions\/5262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theopinator.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}