Dancing to the music, more than 200 Northside students raised more than $33,000 for hospitalized children.

Students raised $33,957.90 during the 10th annual Bishop Chatard dance marathon Sunday, said Kelly Lucas, Bishop Chatard spokeswoman.

Students spent the day learning a dance from members of the Indiana University dance marathon team, Lucas said. They performed the dance as a large group at the end of the event.

The Chatard event is associated with the IU dance marathon program, started by an IU student in 1991 in memory of AIDS victim and Cicero resident Ryan White.

Throughout the seven-hour event, Chatard students also played games, ate and played with visiting patients from Riley Hospital for Children.

To participate in the marathon, students collect a minimum $40 in donations. A student-run committee began raising money in the spring, students have hosted fundraisers and worked at special events throughout the year, and coins have been collected in donation cans.

The amount raised this year puts the total at more than $215,000, Lucas said. Students had set a goal to break the $200,000 threshold.