By Andrew Rivera
Staff Writer

“For the Kids” was the saying throughout the night at the third annual CSUB Dance Marathon. The dance marathon is created to raise funds for the Lauran Small Children’s Medical Center here is Bakersfield. This medical center is the only hospital here in Bakersfield that is entirely for children as most hospitals are busy caring for other patients; children were being overlooked or because the hospitals don’t have the right equipment to treat the children. It was held at Cal State Bakersfield Student Union from Friday April 18 to Saturday April 19,2014 was the dance marathon which lasted from 7 p.m to 7 a.m.

“The marathon to raise money for equipment and supplies in for kids to treated here is Bakersfield instead of having to go out of town to be cared for” said Lauren McCain, RN nurse manager at Children’s Medical Center.

The fundraising marathon is primarily used to raise funds for the medical center to buy equipment that is required for them to use to care for the children parents here instead of going to out of town such as Los Angeles or San Francisco to get care for their children. With the funds they have purchased machines such as laser surgery machine isolators and Children’s Medical Center is also getting ready to open a pediatric pavilion which “will be the only emergency room only dedicated for kids.” This is a huge accomplishment because once this opens it will help kids get the care they need faster.

“Thank you for helping kids like me,” Dewayne Figures said when taking the stage. Dewayne is a child who has been treated by the Children’s Medical Center. Dewayne suffers from acute asthma, which prevents from playing on his schools soccer team, but this is not keeping him away from his goal of one day playing.

The marathon featured many different activities from having a game room watching Carrie Swidecki play “Just Dance” for 12 straight hours to having a dance floor in the Blue room. The Blue room was the place for everyone to just have fun and dance. You saw people breakdancing, popping, and tutting. The people who were doing these dances were people who have had years of dance, then there were the people who were just moving side to side just enjoying the night.

The dance was mainly for students to have fun and socialize with each other. Everyone at the event showed the same message of “For the Kids.” They all showed emotions for all the kids who were there to be honored and know that they are doing this for a good cause. People were cheering and crying at the stories these children were going through. They were cheering the positive attitude they have and crying for the diseases they were fighting. The part that just made everyone in the room say “aww” was when Ryder Whittington said just three words “Hi” and “Thank you.”

“Thank you” and “For the Kids” were the mottos of the night since it was the children saying thank you to all of the people who helped and donated to the event.