Zach Evett sits three days a week in the IMU, surrounded by piles of checks totaling anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000.
Evett is not an oil tycoon or a master of Monopoly, but a Dance Marathon volunteer, and member of the group’s business committee that controls the financial side of the organization.
As part of the committee, the UI senior is responsible for recording donation checks garnered by dancers — a job he said becomes more hectic as the year goes on and donations speed up.
Throughout the week, Evett goes to the IMU and enters bundles of checks into the Dance Marathon database, a task that takes approximately three hours each time.
This year marks Evett’s fourth year of involvement with Dance Marathon, but his first year of involvement with the business committee.
He can still recall the moment he was inspired to join the group.
“I was sitting in [class] and they showed a video of a child helped by DM, and I got signed up right away,” he said.
At the “Big Event” this weekend, as many Dance Marathon responsibilities wind down, Evett’s job will continue.
While the business committee members dance at the “Big Event,” they go in shifts to enter the checks that continue to roll in, said Colette Forcier, Dance Marathon’s Executive Director.
Thanks to the year-long work of students like Evett, dancers know how much money they collectively raised at the end of the “Big Event,” marking the culmination of dancers’ efforts.
Darcy Bennett, donor relations chair and Evett’s morale captain last year, said she appreciated his dedication to Dance Marathon.
“Zach is very involved in many extracurricular activities as well as his school work, but he was always willing to devote time to help with anything I would need,” she said in an e-mail. “He is a very dedicated person and great to work with.”
Evett, a finance and economics major who plans to go into banking, said while he may glean some skills from his Dance Marathon position that will be helpful in his future career, that was not his main impetus.
Rather, he considers the final hour of Dance Marathon’s 24-hour “Big Event” extremely powerful, and was far more interested in helping others.
“Being able to enjoy what you are doing is important,” he said, noting that he especially enjoys the company of others on the committee.
While entering checks for the roughly 2,100 dancers all year may not sound like the most exciting of jobs, playing a part in Dance Marathon is a good feeling, Evett said.
“You will get out of it what you do put in,” he said. “I wanted to put in as much as I could.”
