Superdance 2007: March 10!
Watch a video: The History of Superdance (4 min)
History of the Superdance
Bishop Denis J. O'Connell's Superdance is
the largest high school fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
in the nation, and one of the largest high school fundraising events in
the country. In 1976, Bishop Denis J. O'Connell High School began
holding the Superdance, created by Monsignor James McMurtrie along with
the Bishop O'Connell students, in order to speed the discovery of a
cure for the deadly disease, which had claimed the life of sophomore
Brenda O'Donnell on April 14, 1975. Her sister, Maura O'Donnell,
graduated from O'Connell and went on to nursing school at Marymount
University, continuing to support the Superdance in hopes that a cure
would be found. Her last Superdance was in 1978 when she came out of
the hospital just for the dance. In a speech delivered to the O'Connell
community, she said the following:
All of you I know have dreams--dreams of
college, of success, of love and happiness-- dreams of the future. We
with cystic fibrosis have dreams too. Your wonderful all-out efforts
and work for this dance-a-thon may help to make some of our dreams come
true.
Two months later, she too died of this disease. Since then, the students of O'Connell have worked to help find a cure for cystic fibrosis.
