Finding Purpose and Passion for Community

This past spring, the LMU Sorority & Fraternity Life community hosted their first ever annual LMU Dance Marathon – a 6-hour event celebrating yearlong fundraising totaling $44,349 for the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation, an organization that provides funding and assistance to families battling pediatric cancer.

The B+ Foundation is about kids helping kids fight cancer — raising money through dance marathons, 5Ks, T-shirt sales and more, to provide financial and emotional support to families of children with cancer nationwide. The B+ Foundation also funds critical, cutting-edge childhood cancer research. “This is one of the most impactful fundraising experiences I’ve been apart of,” said Griffin Baumberger ’19, the 2019 LMU InterFraternity Council president.

“We created connections within the LMU Sorority and Fraternity Life community, and with people, we were directly helping through our fundraising efforts. One Sorority raised $10,000 on their own and were paired with a B+ Hero, a child they can support directly and create meaningful connections with.”

The LMU Dance Marathon brought purpose for Baumberger to find meaning on campus for his work on the Interfraternity Council. “To see the impact our Sorority and Fraternity Life community can have on the lives of others by fundraising for the B+ Foundation,” said Baumberger. “We are showing our community what it means to live a life of purpose.”

The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation® honors the life of Andrew McDonough. Andrew battled leukemia, septic shock and complications of childhood cancer for 167 days before passing away on July 14, 2007, at the age of 14. Andrew’s B+ blood type became his family’s and friends’ motto throughout his fight against childhood cancer – to “Be Positive.”