High schoolers start tradition early with mini Thon

By NIKKI VELISARIS
Collegian Staff Writer

Some prospective Penn State students begin their Thon involvement early. Students at Central Dauphin High School, near Harrisburg, hold an annual mini dance marathon, which donates its proceeds to the Four Diamonds Fund.

The mini Thon is in its fifth year, and to date, the school has raised $233,000 for the fund, making it the highest fundraising high school in Pennsylvania.

This year students raised $64,000 at their annual dance marathon held in November.

The mini Thon started after a student at the school received money from the Four Diamonds Fund for his cancer treatments. The student's mother wanted to do something for the program and took the idea to the school's administration.

"It is definitely a lot of work, but it pays off," said Christian Brescia, a senior at Central Dauphin. "It started off small and just snowballed into a huge event."

The school held a kick-off assembly two weeks before the mini dance marathon. The Nittany Lion mascot and Penn State students taught Central Dauphin students the line dance, which is a part of the Interfraterntiy Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon each year.

Four Diamonds families from the Harrisburg area also attended the kick-off assembly and the mini Thon.

This year's theme was "Ain't going down 'til the sun comes up," which was appropriate as students began dancing at 8 p.m. and stayed on their feet for 12 hours.

More than 7,000 students are involved with the program and more than 400 spend the night at the school dancing, said Nancy Santanna, co-chair of the mini dance marathon.

In their first year, students raised $22,000. Each year since then that amount has increased.

"What Penn State does is even more impressive and it gives us something to look up to," Brescia said.

The students set a monetary goal each year, collect donations, can at football games and hold a silent auction in order to raise money.

Usually the students surpass the goal, but this year they did not reach the $75,000 they had been aiming for, Santanna said.

"We knew we had set our goal too high, and not as many people were involved this year," said Tracy Skortz, one of the highest fundraising students for the junior class.

Select Central Dauphin students attended the annual Penn State Thon kick-off dinner for the past five years and will be at dance marathon for the first time this weekend.

This article was originally written for the Digital Collegian.