Our Lady of Mount Carmel's Student-Run Dance-a-Thon

A Catholic Schools Week finale for 270 students

Our Lady of Mount Carmel School (OLMC) is a Catholic elementary and middle school in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Each year Catholic schools mark Catholic Schools Week, and in 2015 OLMC filled it with a family open house and Mass, a students-versus-faculty game show, valentines for veterans, gift bags for bus drivers and bingo over the PA system. The Friday finale was a dance-a-thon, reported by CatholicPhilly.com, the news site of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The dance ran from 12:45 to 3 p.m., the last part of a school day. All 270 students from kindergarten through eighth grade took part, two grades at a time. School secretary Katie O'Connell was the DJ. Students paid for tickets, raffle baskets were sold, and the event raised a little over $2,400. The money went not to OLMC but to Our Lady of Confidence Day School, an archdiocesan special education school in nearby Willow Grove. OLMC principal Dawn Parker said it would buy iPads and cases there.

The eighth grade ran the whole dance-a-thon

What makes OLMC worth studying is who did the work. According to Parker, the eighth graders organized the event as their confirmation service project. They chose the music and built the playlist, made raffle baskets, sold tickets, produced promotional commercials, and then danced with the younger grades. Parker's summary was short: "They did everything."

Eighth-grade teacher Lorianne Davis credited the students' hard work for the event's success. The adults' role, as the article describes it, was to give the class the project and the time. The eighth graders were the planners, the marketing team and the dance partners for children as young as kindergarten.

This structure fits a K–8 school especially well. The oldest students are old enough to own real tasks and young enough that younger children look up to them. Pairing eighth graders with younger grades on the floor also solves the shy-dancer problem: a five-year-old is more likely to join in when a big kid is dancing alongside.

Two grades at a time in a school-day window

OLMC fit nine grades into about two and a quarter hours by rotating pairs of grades through the space. The article doesn't give the length of each slot, or say whether the eighth graders danced throughout. Illustrative only, not from the article: assuming four even rotations for the pairs from kindergarten through seventh grade, 135 minutes ÷ 4 = about 34 minutes each, before time for moving classes in and out.

A rotation like this keeps the room below a crowd the space can't handle and lets the DJ match music to each age group. The article reports that a recent animated-movie song was a hit with the younger students, while the playlist also included familiar line dances and current pop. The session planner's class-rotation mode builds this kind of schedule from your class count, session length, transition time and the venue capacity your facility or fire marshal gives you.

Why $2,400 is low per student, and why that's fine

"A little over $2,400" is a floor: the true figure was slightly higher. With 270 students, that works out to roughly $9 per student ($2,400 ÷ 270). The article doesn't say whether it is gross or net, what tickets cost, or how much came from raffle baskets versus tickets.

That per-student figure is near the bottom of what we've documented, and for a reason. OLMC used no pledges; it relied on in-school ticket sales and a raffle during a 2.25-hour school-day window. Pledge-based events collect from relatives and neighbors and usually report more per child. In our dance-a-thon results database, the median per-participant figure for the seven K–12 events that report both a total and a headcount is $62.50, and OLMC sits near the bottom of that range. Those seven come from published results, which lean toward successful events, so read them as a range rather than a target.

One article, one internal contradiction

One article supports this page. It confirms the date and hours, the 270-student K–8 count, the eighth-grade service project, the rotation by pairs of grades, the DJ, tickets and raffle baskets, the amount and the recipient. It doesn't give ticket prices, raffle rules, costs, how long each grade danced, or where in the building the dance took place. The article also contradicts itself on who danced: the body says all 270 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, while a summary line lists pre-K through seventh grade dancing with the eighth graders.

The article adds that a group of students planned to visit Our Lady of Confidence on February 19 to present the gift and run a bingo game there. We found no follow-up report.

Handing a dance-a-thon to the oldest grade

• Give the top grade a real job, not a token one. Music, marketing, raffle baskets and ticket sales were all eighth-grade work. The student-led planning guide shows how to split tasks between students and the adults who must approve them.
• Give to someone else. Donating to another school gave the service project its point and gave students a visit to plan afterward. It also changes the pitch: families are asked to help other children, not their own school.
• Raffles are not donations. The IRS says amounts paid for raffle tickets can't be deducted as charitable contributions, and it notes that states and localities regulate gaming by exempt organizations. Check your state's raffle rules and your diocese or district policy before selling.
• Use a school-day window when evenings are hard. An afternoon slot during a themed week needs no evening chaperones, no transport and no dinner. The school dance-a-thon guide compares in-school and evening formats.

More examples by school type are in the dance-a-thon case studies.