Anyone who stopped by the Thon Store at the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon Saturday afternoon was in for a surprise.

The usual trademark sweatshirts, T-shirts and hoodies were available for purchase, but the store's personnel were a bit different than in years past.

In addition to Penn State student volunteers, young children helped the store's clientele, bagging purchases and counting money on the upper level of Rec Hall.

Eleven-year-old Taylor Hurley propped herself up on a stool to reach the cash register so she could ring up customers.

It was fun to work at the cash register and use the "credit card thing," Hurley said.

"You get to talk to people you never talked to before," she added.

Family Relations Captain Suzanne Green explained the idea behind Project SIBS, the program that organized Hurley's job at the Thon Store.

New to this year's marathon, organizers created the project to incorporate the brothers and sisters of kids with cancer by letting them work alongside Thon volunteers, Green said.

"We thought that Project SIBS would be a great way to get the siblings

involved," she said. "This is just a way to remind them that we care about them, too."

Each of the children chose which committee they wanted to work on based on their interests. The committee options included public relations, marketing, morale and social.

An energetic 8-year-old named Katie Hoch got to work on the social committee with her 4-year-old sister Carley and Social Captain Dan Dougherty.

The sisters helped Dougherty serve hoagies to families and they goofed around in the process. Katie said Dougherty was a fun guy to work with "because he likes to play with me."

Dougherty said that in spending the afternoon with the girls he got completely soaked with water and had to make two trips to the bathroom to wash bubble mix off himself.

"When they first got here, they were both a little shy," he said, adding he thought Carley might never talk to him.

"By the end they were just going nuts," he said as Katie bounced a large blue beach ball at his head.

The girls' mother, Judy, said they were talking about Project SIBS during the long car ride to State College from their home in the Lehigh Valley area.

She said the project was a good way to get the children more involved.

"I thought it was cool that they were going to do it," she added.

Green said the idea was to make sure that Thon was for all the kids this year: "They're all kids -- they all needed to have a good time this weekend."