An eight-hour dance-a-thon will be held at McCabes Saturday to raise money for the Jennifer Ettema Scholarship Fund.

Jennifer Ettema, an NIU senior communications major, died from Marfans Disease one week before the fall semester started this year. Although she knew her genetic disease was fatal, Ettema’s goal was to graduate from college.

“She really wanted to get her degree before she died,” said Gary Kreps, director of graduate studies in the department of communications. Kreps, who had Ettema in an undergraduate class he taught, said that even when she was in the hospital for heart surgery she continued handing in assignments.

The dance-a-thon will be held Saturday from noon until 8 p.m. at McCabes Lounge, 323 E. Lincoln Hwy. Women in Communications, Inc., the Public Relations Student Society of America, the Advertising Club, Alpha Epsilon Rho and the Communication Student Advisory Committee all are working together to start this scholarship fund.

About 20 students, faculty, and staff members will be dancing. The money they raise from their sponsors, as well as money from selling $3 bottomless cups of beer, will go toward the fund.

The scholarship will be given to a communications student who is hardworking, active in communication organizations and in need of financial assistance—all attributes of Ettema.

Toni Mazzuca, a friend of Ettema’s through high school and college, said she wants to begin this scholarship in Ettema’s name to help a student, who is as determined as Ettema was, get his or her college degree.