This year's THON was different from years past. My freshman and sophomore years I was a member of an OPP committee, meeting once a week throughout the entire year. THON was constantly on my radar. Last year, two of my best friends were dancing for Hillel Benefitting THON, and I spent the majority of THON weekend in the BJC, only going home to sleep during the pep rally. This year, I was not on a committee nor did I feel the need to stay and support our org's dancers all weekend long. My sister came up for THON, and I wanted to give her the very best experience. I tried to warn her that we would be standing for more than 24 hours this weekend--and she seemed okay with it on the phone, but I knew in the back of my mind that she would not last that long.
Our org needed to move to the upper bowl early Sunday morning because there was just not enough space where we were standing. I really didn't want to go up into the nosebleeds and decided to stay in the lower bowl with my sister. She was getting exhausted, the one friend who decided to stay with us had gone home, and I was starting to feel nauseous. So we left. With about seven more hours to go until the end of THON 2013. And on some level, I'm really glad we went home; I was not feeling well and my body really couldn't stand any more and my sister was exhausted and bored. However, this was my last THON as a student and I wish that I had stayed until the end. Maybe if we had moved upstairs and had the company of my org I could have stood the weekend, but I don't know.
THON is an impressive organization with the amount it can accomplish in a single year. However, the dedication it requires from its volunteers is quite astounding. There's a joke that some of the overalls "major in THON," focusing all of their attention to working for this one weekend. Some have to stay on for an extra semester just to complete their schoolwork because they took time off for THON. The GREEK pledges who have to stand in the stands during "shifts" just to hold seats for the upperclassmen who are coming back for specific events. The independent dancer wannabes who work all year canning and fundraising just to be entered into a lottery to dance and not get selected. The people who stand in line for hours trying to get into the BJC, only to be angry when the R&R captain turns them away because the BJC is at capacity.
But then you meet kids in the Four Diamonds Families and you get reminded that this event is not about any Penn Staters, it is about these families and making sure they don't have to worry about anything other than taking care of their sick child. The focus of this event shouldn't be the total. While it is a very impressive number and the orgs who raise over half a million dollars in a single year should be proud of themselves, it is the families who need our focus. All of the statuses on facebook that say "I have 12.3 million reasons why my school is better than yours" have the wrong focus. This event should not be about the money. It is about and for the kids. I must commend the Daily Collegian for not putting the total on the front page, but rather a Four Diamonds Child (Hillel's THON child to be exact), because this is really the purpose of this weekend--making these kids feel like kids again.
Our org needed to move to the upper bowl early Sunday morning because there was just not enough space where we were standing. I really didn't want to go up into the nosebleeds and decided to stay in the lower bowl with my sister. She was getting exhausted, the one friend who decided to stay with us had gone home, and I was starting to feel nauseous. So we left. With about seven more hours to go until the end of THON 2013. And on some level, I'm really glad we went home; I was not feeling well and my body really couldn't stand any more and my sister was exhausted and bored. However, this was my last THON as a student and I wish that I had stayed until the end. Maybe if we had moved upstairs and had the company of my org I could have stood the weekend, but I don't know.
THON is an impressive organization with the amount it can accomplish in a single year. However, the dedication it requires from its volunteers is quite astounding. There's a joke that some of the overalls "major in THON," focusing all of their attention to working for this one weekend. Some have to stay on for an extra semester just to complete their schoolwork because they took time off for THON. The GREEK pledges who have to stand in the stands during "shifts" just to hold seats for the upperclassmen who are coming back for specific events. The independent dancer wannabes who work all year canning and fundraising just to be entered into a lottery to dance and not get selected. The people who stand in line for hours trying to get into the BJC, only to be angry when the R&R captain turns them away because the BJC is at capacity.
But then you meet kids in the Four Diamonds Families and you get reminded that this event is not about any Penn Staters, it is about these families and making sure they don't have to worry about anything other than taking care of their sick child. The focus of this event shouldn't be the total. While it is a very impressive number and the orgs who raise over half a million dollars in a single year should be proud of themselves, it is the families who need our focus. All of the statuses on facebook that say "I have 12.3 million reasons why my school is better than yours" have the wrong focus. This event should not be about the money. It is about and for the kids. I must commend the Daily Collegian for not putting the total on the front page, but rather a Four Diamonds Child (Hillel's THON child to be exact), because this is really the purpose of this weekend--making these kids feel like kids again.
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