Madison Ober has been involved in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln HuskerThon since she was a UNL freshman. She was one of an estimated 1,000 college students involved in the two-day dance marathon held in February that included attendance by current and former pediatric patients and their families.
This year, the annual event raised $200,000 to benefit the local Children’s Miracle Network at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center.
Now a senior nursing student at the UNMC College of Nursing Lincoln Division, she has been a family representative which enabled her to spend a day with a miracle family/child. As a senior she joined the executive team as a family relations director which put her in charge of all of the miracle kids and their families.
“It’s been a blast,” Ober said. “I always knew from a younger age that working with kids for my job was a dream of mine. The dance marathon is such an amazing cause and being a nursing student, knowing that everything we were doing was for children, it made me so much more invested in the program.”
She said the mission of the event is at least for one day, to make sure that the children at the dance marathon don’t feel like they were patients.
“We wanted them to feel like rock stars. The kids were able to participate in a dodgeball tournament, a scavenger hunt, a talent show and a tug-o-war competition. I was able to see them having an incredible time and witnessed college students be so impacted by each family story.”
She said her favorite part of the event was the kid’s talent show.
“Every year, one of our miracle kids, Willa, dances to a song of her choice,” Ober said. “This year, she danced to ‘This is Me’ from the Greatest Showman. If you’ve seen the movie, you would know that it was pretty emotional to see a kid dance so beautifully to the song. All the dancers had their cell phone lights in the air as well.”
Watch a video from the 2018 HuskerThon.
The Children’s Miracle Network raises funds and awareness for 170 member hospitals that provide 32 million treatments each year to kids across the U.S. and Canada. Donations stay local to fund critical treatments and health care services, pediatric medical equipment and charitable care.