2021 Dance Big Red raises $43,642 for Norton Children’s Hospital

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - Friday evening, WKU held its annual Dance Big Red. Because of the pandemic, organizers have spent months planning a virtual event that nearly 400 people attended.

“The main difference this year with how we’ve been doing things is we’ve done a lot of stuff on social media, probably more social media than we’ve ever done,” Haley Cooper, one of the overall co-chairs of Dance Big Red said.

People from all over pledge money leading up to and during the event while participants are asked to stay standing for 12 hours, learning dances along the way. This year, the event was only four hours long as it was put on through Zoom.

“We stay standing and dance for all the doctors and nurses that work in Norton’s, and contribution to them and support them,” Cooper said.

Friday night, several families and individual people shared their testimonies of positive experiences receiving care from Norton Children’s Hospital, reminding participants of how their work goes toward helping the patients and staff there.

“It warms my heart to see all this hard work,” Briley Banks, the other overall co-chair of the event said. “Our executive committee members, we call them the Dream Team, because we couldn’t have done it without them. All this hard work is just paying off ten-fold and we’re so excited for tonight.”

At 10 p.m. it was announced that 2021 Dance Big Red raised $43,642 for the children’s hospital. While the team is hopeful to have the event in person next year, right now they are celebrating the success of the virtual fundraiser.

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