An all-ages event at The Jungle? It may sound crazy, but it’s happening this weekend.

The Jungle will be the sight of the first joint sorority/fraternity philanthropy event ever at NIU. The organizations will be raising money through their “Bop Till You Drop” dance marathon beginning at 6 p.m. and lasting until 10 p.m.

All proceeds will be going to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of DeKalb and Gallaudet College for the Hearing Impaired.

There is a $2 cover charge to watch the competition and a $3 donation is needed to participate in the contest. T-shirts will be available for $7 and there also will be a raffle going on throughout the evening for 50 cents.

The organizations are hoping to raise $2,000 from the event to be split and donated to their philanthropy projects.

To win, dancers need to dance non-stop for all four hours of the marathon. Any dancers who stop dancing for more than five seconds are disqualified from the contest.

Being raffled off will be gift certificates, free compact discs and Michael Jordan video tapes.

House members said they were grateful for the support given to them while working on the major philanthropy event. “We really appreciate all the support the Greek community has given us for this,” said Delta Zeta philanthropy chair Ronna Gough. “There have been a lot of local businesses that have been supportive and without this type of help we would have been nowhere.”

Gough said she is excited the houses will be competing in the dance marathon. “We got a lot of different responses; a lot of the sororities were eager to join the dance contest,” she said. “Right now we have about half of the fraternities participating.”

The organizations initially ran into some problems while organizing the event. Since the contest is an all-ages event, a special license was needed to use the area in The Jungle.

“We didn’t realize how much work it was going to be at first,” said Assistant Coordinator of the event Derek Boundy. “There were six of us who did most of the organizing. I think 10 people could have ran things slightly smoother.”

Gough said she hopes the contest becomes an annual event. “A lot of philanthropy projects flop in their first year,” she said. “So far this has been really successful, so hopefully next year it might be all the more successful.”

People don’t necessarily need to belong to a Greek organization to participate in the dance marathon. The organizations said they are hoping there will be independent parties in attendance at the dance.

For more information, call Boundy at 748-5540 or Gough at 756-8559.