Alabama and LSU are going head-to-head this week in a battle that is taking place off the field – a race to raise the most money for their local children’s hospitals.

The Dance Marathon Chapter at The University of Alabama has been uniting students for this cause since 2011, but this marks just the third year of their competition with LSU. All week, the UADM team has been racing to raise as much money as possible for Children’s of Alabama, their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. 

“To me, this event stands out in the fact that we are partnering with a fellow Dance Marathon,’ said Andrew Reed, UADM Director of Corporate Partnerships. “It adds to the community of our Dance Marathon family, as well as the community around Tuscaloosa because people always love to rally behind this cause.”

Reed said including the community in their drive to succeed really helps the UADM team thrive this week. 

“We have a lot of different events going on throughout the week,” said Meghan Poljak, UADM director of Public Relations. “To raise money, mostly individuals, the staff members, are posting on social media and posting links where people can donate to them directly.”

Each night there are events going on around campus in order to help raise money. They’ve already held a spirit night at Chipotle, and still have a skating night and an event at Red Shed to come.

“It’s really exciting for me because people are already really into the idea of, you know, beating LSU, and there’s already that competition there, so a lot of people get really excited,” Poljak said. “And people get to view our videos about the miracle children, so it gives us a lot of awareness this week. More of the public will be able to see why we do what we do and who it’s really benefiting.”

The winner of the competition will be announced an hour before kick-off this Saturday. Poljak said they do not have any idea of what LSU is raising until they see the total. 

For more information and a schedule of their events, go to www.uadm.ua.edu.