Before her is a tangle of polychromatic humanity: weary dancers clinging onto each other, rowdy moralers bouncing around with toys and treats and Thon children inspiring all the way.

It's a familiar sight for 32-year-old Jennifer Kern and her family. It's home. This weekend, a year's worth of canning trips, late-night meetings, hours of lost sleep and millions of dollars raised all culminated in front of her in a 46-hour span.

This wasn't the first time Kern had seen the sights and sounds of the Interfraternity/Panhellenic Council Dance Marathon. As a teenager, Kern had the most common type of bone cancer among children, osteogenic sarcoma, in her right knee. She was a Four Diamonds child in 1992 and is now cancer-free. Still, someone from her family has returned to Thon each year for the past 15 years.

"Just the fact that these kids, who are 20 years old, are thinking about somebody else and are wanting to raise money for some kid they don't know is an experience in itself," she said. "To see that they've given up their time to help my family -- it warms your heart."

The venue has expanded, the line dance has evolved -- this much is clear. But it is the intangibles, those moments between an afflicted child and an out-reaching student that truly shape Thon weekend, have remained the same.

"I cry every time I come here because there's such unselfishness, such giving," said Kern's mother, Mary Ann Ebersole.

As Kern, a Hummelstown native, took time to view the dancers, Thon leaders and crowd of students, she also spent time hanging out with her husband and 4-year-old daughter.

On Sept. 15, 1990, when she was 16 and diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma, she had two options: amputate the leg or undergo a new bone-replacement procedure.

On Nov. 15, 1990, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, she had the bone from her mid-thigh to mid-shin removed and replaced with metal rods. Today, she walks with a limp -- vanished are her vigorous days as a high school athlete.

"That's one of the hardest things that I've had to deal with and still deal with on a regular basis," Kern said. "I have a 4-year-old daughter, and I can't run after her, and I'm limited in the things I can do with her. And it's hard. It's very hard."

Following the surgery, she underwent chemotherapy, which she completed at the end of 1991. She missed nearly her entire junior year of high school because of the chemo, which caused her to lose her hair.

She returned for her senior year and went on to attend Penn State-Mont Alto for two years before graduating in 1997 from the University Park campus, where she served on the Thon hospitality committee for two years.

"I've always seen the family side, but to be on the other side ... it was neat," Kern said. "It was great to be a part of it."

Kern's still a part of it. She attended this year's Thon with her husband, daughter, mother and 19-year-old sister, Amanda Ebersole, a freshman at Penn State-Mont Alto and captain of a morale squad.

Amid the chaos on the floor, the entire family, unified by Thon, carved its own niche inside the Jordan Center.

"God has His own purpose. Obviously my sister got [cancer] for a reason," Amanda Ebersole said. "I can't explain Thon. The theme this year is 'Many Hearts, One Home.' This is my home. Each and every one of these people -- even though I don't know them -- they are my family."