Goshen High students organize first-ever dance marathon for their special-ed classmates

GOSHEN, Ind. --- A group of students at Goshen High School are helping to raise money for their special-ed classmates.  

Students from the Theory of Knowledge class at the high school have helped organized the school’s first ever dance marathon event to raise money to better their opportunities and experiences with the Unified Sports teams, who are without uniforms and only have a few sports options.

“Tonight we are raising funds and awareness for Unified Sports teams here at Goshen High School,” Jocelyn Walters said, who helped head the organization efforts for the dance marathon.

Maggie Gallagher also helped pull it all off.

“Our goal is to raise awareness and support and fundraise for our unified sports teams and Special Olympics Indiana,” Gallagher said.

When tasked with an assignment in one of their classes, Jocelyn and Maggie decided to organize the dance marathon to help their fellow special-ed classmates.

“We just started unified sports a couple years ago and I hope that as more people learn about it and support that we can keep doing things like that,” Gallagher said. “This is going to help them purchasing uniforms and equipment that they need.”

The turnout, they say, is better than expected and the donations have been steadily coming in all night.

“It’s been pretty great,” Walters said.

But more than anything, Jocelyn and Maggie are just happy they’ve been able to help the people that need it.

“It’s pretty special because it was really cool to see this all come together, to see our class come together and pull this off and when you see people come in and enjoy this event, we’re making a difference in their lives and that’s pretty awesome,” Walters said.