The following content is purely satirical. Don’t believe everything you read.
Disclaimer: I support any and all fundraisers whose goal is to raise money to help people affected by childhood cancer.
Second Disclaimer: I love NOVAdance. I have donated. I will continue to show my support for years to come.
Third Disclaimer: That’s it for disclaimers, but I just wanted to make sure it was clear before we began that I love NOVAdance, and I support fundraising for people affected by childhood cancer.
We good? Did I cover my bases?
Okay, without further ado: satire.
There are few things we as a society can agree on, especially in these divided times. Everything is polarized these days. Everything has to be a fight. Everyone has a differing opinion on everything.
Coke or Pepsi? The best Jonas brother? Star Wars prequels or sequels? Lebron or MJ? Nobody can decide, and if you do have an opinion, it’s wrong.
There are three things we as a society can agree on:
Fundraising is good.
Childhood cancer is bad.
Dancing is fun.
That’s it. That’s all we can agree on, and we’re right. There is no contesting any of these things.
Everyone wants to fundraise and everyone wants to stop childhood cancer. So, what do we do? We all fight to see who can do it best. For some reason, we do that through dance.
If I want to get rid of childhood cancer and you want to get rid of childhood cancer, what do we do? We see who can do it better, faster, stronger. Why would we work together to stop this thing we clearly both agree should end when we can just be competitive about it? After all, that is the American way.
Or maybe it’s just the college student way. There is just something about the nature of college that makes us competitive. We had to be competitive to get here. Now that we’re here, we have to be competitive to make sure we get the future we want.
It makes sense that we would be competitive about our fundraising. It makes sense that we would be competitive about trying to cure childhood cancer.
You’d be hard pressed to find a college that doesn’t have a fundraiser that aims at helping people affected by childhood cancer. Probably because we all agree that fundraising is good and childhood cancer is bad.
But there has to be something said about the competitive nature that is involved, as well.
Sure, everyone wants to raise money to stop childhood cancer, but everyone also wants to be the best at what they do.
Especially college students.
Especially Villanova students.
Here at Villanova, we have NOVAdance, an annual fundraising event for those affected by childhood cancer. Not that I have to tell you that. Of course you know what NOVAdance is. I bet you don’t know any of the names of any other college childhood cancer fundraisers. (There are a lot. Too many to remember, actually).
Last month, Villanova competed in UDance Day, an annual fundraising competition between NOVAdance and University of Delaware’s counterpart, UDance. There is literally an annual event that promotes the competitive nature of fundraising. I’m telling you, we have a serious problem here. We should be able to coexist peacefully. We don’t need to always compete.
Does that mean we’re going to stop competing? Of course not.
At the end of the day, competing for fundraising for a good cause doesn’t hurt anyone. Even if you lose the competition, you still raised money. Plus, you probably had fun.
And I’m not just saying that because UDance beat NOVAdance this year. I really mean it. Winning isn’t everything. At least, not in this one instance.
In all seriousness, all fundraisers are amazing, and I would never actually pit them against each other. We should all work together to raise money for any and all people affected by childhood cancer. No fundraiser is better than another.
We all agree that fundraising is good, childhood cancer is bad and dancing is fun. We don’t actually have to fight about everything all the time. It’s okay to be united on something.
But, if I had to pick my favorite dance marathon fundraiser event for combating and spreading awareness for childhood cancer, I would have to pick NOVAdance.
