For Cassondra Boehmer, Dance Marathon is a cause worth sticking around for.

Touched by what she calls the “passion of Dance Marathon,” she was inspired to stay in the Iowa City area after graduating in December to participate, for the fifth time, in the “Big Event.”

“Dance Marathon is amazing,” she said. “It has honestly changed my life and what I want to do with my life.”

The organization has touched her life in more ways than one.

Though she enrolled at the UI contemplating a business major, Boehmer is now hoping to go into pediatric nursing.

Having completed her nursing degree at the UI, she works to positively affect the lives of Dance Marathon kids. As the family-programming cochairwoman, she is responsible for developing the theme for the Family Room, a place of less chaotic fun for kids and their families during the 24-hour event.

This year, the room will have a Disney theme, replete with karaoke, Mickey Mouse ears, a dress-up castle, temporary tattoos, and inflatables.

Fellow family programming cochairwoman Alysse Flynn said Boehmer’s ability to connect with children has helped immensely.

“She puts herself in the place of the kids and is really creative and imaginative,” she said.

Throughout the year, Boehmer and the rest of the family-programming team work to plan events for Dance Marathon kids and their families. Recent trips have included theme parks, water parks, and pumpkin patches.

Boehmer said she is impressed by the spirit of the Dance Marathon kids she interacts with. She was taken aback while watching kids with no hair on tricycles at the hospital being chased around by parents with IV poles.

“They ignore the fact that they are in the hospital,” she said. “They just inspire me that anything is possible.”

Boehmer also serves as a source of inspiration for others and as a necessary cog in the Dance Marathon wheel.

Megan Jones, the organization’s hospital director, said Boehmer has been vital to the organization.

“She pours her heart and soul into Dance Marathon,” she said.

For Boehmer, the culmination of this hard work comes during Power Hour — the final hour of the “Big Event” — a time she said is so powerful it’s hard to explain to others.

“In that moment, it’s like nothing else matters, the little trivial things in life, you know, your tests, money, none of those things matter,” she said. “You know that you are helping those kids fight, and all of your hard work and effort is right then and there.”