South Fayette students raise $142,000 for childhood cancer
At some point, the success of South Fayette’s Mini-THON has to level out. Just not yet.
For the second straight year, the fundraiser for childhood cancer raised more than $100,000. After months of work from a group of about 30 students, and contributions from the rest of the high school community, South Fayette raised $142,000 for Four Diamonds, a charitable organization at Penn State Children’s Hospital that funds pediatric cancer research, as well as ease costs for patients and their families.
“It continues to reinforce what we already know about (the students),” said Brandon Flannery, the program’s advisor. “It’s a special community. That’s a group that when they apply themselves, they show how remarkable they are. I think it says these kids are exactly what we think they are. It makes me and the faculty extremely proud.”
This year’s Mini-THON, which is based off Penn State University’s annual THON event, is South Fayette’s sixth. The past two years have skyrocketed compared to where the fundraiser started with just $3,000 in 2013.
The event is led by Flannery’s honors management and marketing course. The 27 seniors in the class, combined with student government, raised the money and plan the event. They sell sponsorship packages to business, plan the 12-hour Mini-THON event and run the program’s impressive social media campaign. The three chairs of this year’s Mini-THON were Drew Saxton, Emily Maloney and Bailey Pardee.
Pardee, who has worked the Mini-THON event for the last four years, said the students in the class care about the event.
“Every single day in class we are either planning the event or talking to sponsors,” Pardee said. “As we got closer to the event, we had everyone staying after school to plan the event.”
The event, which started at 6 p.m. April 20 and ended at 6 a.m. April 21, drew more than 600 students – about two-thirds of the student body. The event hosts games, raffles, dancing and many other activities, with the most anticipated one being the total dollar figure reveal at the end. Several videos posted to Twitter when the final amount of $142,000 was posted show students, despite it being 5:40 a.m., jumping and cheering in excitement.
“I think we all just have this common goal,” Pardee said. “The students at South Fayette are so amazing. You don’t see that in many other places. We came together for this.”
While the students are taking an honors class for a grade, Flannery said Mini-THON is much more important than his high school course.
“This is 100 percent student driven. This is all on the kids,” he said. “Yes they’re in the class, but the grade means so much less than the outcome of the fundraiser.”
Pardee was thankful for the teachers, of whom Flannery said more than 90 percent participated in the fundraiser.
“We could never thank them enough,” Pardee said. “They went out of their way to help us. They even stayed overnight. You don’t see many teachers who are willing to stay overnight with teenagers.”
Flannery said it’s rewarding for him to see his students have a positive experience that not only teaches them the material but also benefits a larger cause.
“It’s special,” he said. “As an educator what else could you ask for, you have kids buy into the understanding that we’re doing something bigger than us and that we can help. … It’s been one of the most remarkable experiences in my career to see these kids embrace such a big task and not run from it.”
While Pardee is graduating from South Fayette High School in a month, she doesn’t think Mini-THON is slowing down anytime soon.
“At some point it’s going to level off,” she said. “But I still think we have three or four more years to increase the total.”