Students are crazy about THON by Ryan Russell

Many students are going crazy for the world’s largest student-run philanthropy in the world Penn State students call THON. THON is a year round fundraising event that benefits the 4 Diamonds Fund which helps to conquer childhood cancer at Hershey Medical Center. Over 700 Penn State students come together yearly for a dance phenomenon called THON. THON is also a 48 hour straight dance marathon; there is no sitting, or no sleeping.

Each of the 19 branch campuses of Penn State University has an important impact at the main campus THON event. Each campus raises money through year round fundraisers. The goal of the Lehigh Valley campus is to raise $10,000 by Friday, February 18 th. This year Penn States THON committee along with the SGA have arranged a series of events to help achieve there goal. Events included a THON concert, a poker tournament, a THON kickoff party, sign my shirt for a dollar, a date auction, and a silent auction that has received over $1000.

The students this year have surpassed their previous efforts of last year by obtaining $1000 bonus grant from Wal-Mart’s Good Works Program. The $1000 check can be used at Penn State Lehigh Valley’s discretion. The SGA also had two restaurants donate Penn State a percentage of their sales for the day. The two restaurants were Armetta’s in Macungie, and Friendly’s on Cedar Crest.

This year Penn State sent two dancers from Lehigh Valley campus. Matt Kulp and Christina Weadon attended the dance, dancing from Friday at 7pm until Sunday at 7pm. Matt said, “I’m pretty stoked about dancing, you get to dance with the kids from the hospital, play games and just have an overall fun time.” Christina discussed “I am nervous because it is my first year dancing,” this a reservation most would have before having to dance for 48hr straight.

Lehigh Valley’s chair of THON Jackie Kromer was very enthusiastic about the hard work the SGA has done to provide the events. In reaction to her opinion on attending THON last year, she stated “it is the most amazing, hard, life changing experience regardless if you are dancing or watching from the stands.”

THON is important to thousands of students throughout all the Penn State University campuses. With millions going yearly to cancer research every year we can only hope that THON’s impact on students will continue to grow.