Distance 4 Dreams

Collection

Identifier: UA-025-005

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Distance 4 Dreams collection contains photos of the Disney Weekend Marathon Weekend, the student organization always wears matching T-Shirts for the race and tours the Give Kids the World Village and takes a picture in front of the famous mushroom carisoul at the GKTW Village. The certificate of the stone that was in the honor of the Distance 4 Dreams organization for their charitable donation is included in the collection. As well, there are images of the organization events hosted on campus such as the Family Weekend Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser, being the largest fundraiser that the organization has put on, the Minnie 5k with tradition of people dressing up in Disney costumes. Also there is an extensive amount of pictures collected of a child and their family’s trip that was sponsored by the student organization. In box 2 of the collection is a plaque from the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Greater Dayton Region Chapter, honoring the University of Dayton Distance 4 Dreams organization for leadership as outstanding youths (ages 18-23) in 2015.

Dates

Creation: 2008-2015

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open and available to the public for research in the University Archives and Special Collections reading room. The materials are non-circulating.

Conditions Governing Use

The materials in the collection may be protected b copyright law (Title 17, US code). The materials are available for personal, educational, and scholarly use. It is responsiblity of th researcher to locate and obtan permission from use of copyright owner or his or her heris for any other use, such as reproduction and publication.

Biographical / Historical

Distance 4 Dreams is a unique service organization that fundraises to sponsor the wish of a local Dayton child with a life-threatening disease to go to Give Kids the World Village in Kissimmee, Florida for a week through A Special Wish Foundation. At Give Kids the World Village, they are treated like kings and queens for a week and get ice cream for breakfast if they so choose. They receive passes to all of the central Florida theme parks, including Universal Studios, Sea World, and Disney World. The group of Distance 4 Dreams students then joins the family for the Disney Marathon Weekend and individual students participate in the half marathon, the full marathon, or the “goofy challenge”. The Faculty Advisor of the 2019-2020 academic year is Dr. Philip Anloague, who is a full-time faculty member as the Department Chair Director of Physical Therapy as well as an associate professor. The club initially had a different faculty advisor when first formed but Dr. Anloague has administered this role for a majority of the club’s existence on the University of Dayton’s campus. The organization has a special interest legacy house on 460 Kiefaber. The organization began with a University of Dayton student, Katie Przybysz (‘07), looking for a way to get more involved in the Dayton community. In the Spring of 2006 is when she found the A Special Wish Foundation. She was blown away by the foundation and was not long before she was extended an internship for the fall semester. In November of 2006, when her internship neared its end, she met fellow University of Dayton student, Anna Young (‘08) and began sharing her experience with the internship. Anna had then shared that her and her roommates had been planning on running the Disney Marathon but hadn’t found “the right” cause to run it for yet. Katie, Anna, and Anna’s roommate Lisa Monnot (‘08) began forming an organization that would help students, faculty, and staff tran for a marathon or half-marathon, all while fundraising for A Special Wish Foundation. The idea was that A Special Wish would send a wish child to Disney World for their “wish” at the same time as the Disney marathon weekend. Everything quickly fell into place the spring of 2007 with their biggest obstacles being registering with Disney and forming plans for fundraising in the fall. Looking forward the organization had expanded to Xavier University and Wittenberg University within just one year of the organization’s existence as well as interest and plans of students at other campuses looking to continue expansion of the organization. The goal is to continue the expansion of the organization to other college campuses and continuing granting wishes of children matched to the student organization through A Special Wish Foundation. The University of Dayton branch has alone granted over 15 wishes and has been an active organization on the University of Dayton’s campus for 12 years as of the 2019-2020 academic year.