Jaguar Miracle holds movie night to promote pediatric healthcare

By TaKeyah Flanagan | Staff writer

Jaguar Miracle held a fundraising event recently to introduce students, showcasing an organization that operates year round while bringing other student organizations into its mission of supporting pediatric healthcare.

Jaguar Miracle hosted a movie night on the Health Sciences Campus on Thursday, Sept. 3.

 The organization is part of a larger dance marathon organization that stretches across the United States. The Augusta University students’ event is called Jagathon Dance Marathon. This academic year, Jagathon will be held Feb. 27, 2027.

 “We have miracle kids come out and talk as well as their families,” said Kayla Wilder, the campus outreach board member of Jaguar Miracle. “Then every hour we have a fundraising push to raise money for Children’s Hospital, and you also get to learn dances and do fun activities throughout the day, which is a lot of fun and keeps the hype up for the children because it’s important they have fun outside of the hospital as well.”

 Christy Eapen, president of Jaguar Miracle, wants to make it known that the organization is a lot bigger than just their Jagathon event.  She shares that when she became president, she changed a lot of the ways the leadership ran and established general body meetings.

 Setting up these meetings showed Eapen that they are more of an organization and allowed them to get more involved with committees and hold more events.

“Just hearing the stories from all our miracle children is always a blast, because you get to really hear what they went through and how much the hospital has provided for them as well as their families,” Wilder said. “That inspired me to get involved with this organization my junior year, and continue my senior year.”

Throughout the semester, the organization will hold various donation drives, card making, various initiatives and tabling initiatives where guests will come and talk more about the children’s hospital. The organization also offers volunteer hours for different events. They also partner with other organizations as well.

“As president, I just wanted to capitalize on making our presence known on campus,” Eapen said.

With social media being a big tool for clubs and organizations to help students know about them and get involved, public relations chair Emily Monroe shared how she was able to get the news out about last week’s event.

“I made the banner for this event, with help from some of our other board members,” Monroe said. “Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things about this board, we’re very good at handling different tasks and everybody has a role and are willing to help each other out.”

Wilder explained how Jaguar Miracle is branching out to other organizations.

“We really like to outreach to different organizations,” she said. “Last year we did focus a lot on the fraternities and sororities as well as medical-based clubs, but now we’re branching out a little more.”

Eapen said there was a purpose behind the movie night.

“This is just to raise awareness,” she said. “We're going to get the community together, so they can learn more about Children’s Hospital. We don’t want to take anything for ourselves. That’s the whole purpose of our organization. Every dollar you spend tonight, every dollar you spend on popcorn, baked items, Italian ice—100 percent of that money will go towards improving the lives of a patient.”

For movie night, Jaguar Miracle includes other clubs and organizations so they can advocate for themselves and give freshmen an opportunity to get to know them.

Other clubs that were included were the Indian Culture Exchange Club, Girls Who Code, Pickleball & Parables, Healing Hands, Zeta Tau Alpha, ADPI (Alpha Delta Pi), Clinical Compass, MAPS, Black Student Nurses Society, Catholic Campus Ministry, Hermandad de Sigma lota Alpha, INC, Pi Kappa Phi and HOSA.

“All these organizations took time out of their own day to make all sorts of items, as part of a fundraising competition,” said Eapen.

Jaguar Miracle hosts a movie night in front of the Dental College of Georgia. (photo by Takeyah Flanagan/the Bell Ringer)

Again, all the money that is raised tonight will go straight to the children’s hospital and not back to any of the organizations.

Indian Culture Exchange was doing henna, and the Catholic Campus ministry was selling brownies.

“We were really excited to put on this movie night as a big fundraising push as well,” said Wilder.

“All these organizations are spending their own time and energy to donate to Children’s Hospital, and, yes, it’s very altruistic to see that,” Eapen said. “But that’s what Augusta University stands for. At the heart of what we do is service, and we wanted to make that known to everyone who comes out here today while they have fun watching a movie, ‘Project Hail Mary.’”

Approximately 90 students attended the movie night, and Jaguar Miracle raised $900 at the movie-night event.

Note: At the top of the page, members of Jaguar Miracle include, from left to right: Liz Jahns, Mariya Saju, Kayla Wilder, Emily Monroe, Nethra Arunachalam, Saniya Patel, Abigail Hitchcock, Ariel Robinson, Harsh Patel, Christy Eapen, Meenakshi Buramshetty and Eva Paul. (photo by Takeyah Flanagan/the Bell Ringer)

Contact Takeyah Flanagan at taflanagan@augusta.edu.