On Thursday night at Harper’s Restaurant and Brewpub, 131 Albert Ave., revelers looking to kick off the St. Patrick’s Day weekend early can do so while supporting the MSU Dance Marathon.
The annual event, which recently completed its sixth marathon on Feb. 16, centers around fundraising that sponsors participants to stay on their feet for 12 hours. This year, the marathon adopted a nonprofit with close ties to the MSU community.
The Cassie Hines Shoes Cancer Foundation, or CHSCF, works “to raise awareness and financial support for cancer camps and support groups geared toward cancer patients ages 16-30.”
A relatively new nonprofit, CHSCF was formed by family and friends of MSU student Cassie Hines, who passed away last year at the age of 21 after a long battle with kidney cancer.
“Throughout her whole cancer struggle, (Cassie) really never embraced her battles until she went to camp,” said Ashley Hines, Cassie Hines’s sister and the foundation’s marketing director.
“When she came back the first time she just was a completely different person. She was so empowered. We wanted to provide an opportunity for (others) like her to go to camp and have that same experience.”
The most recent marathon involved more than 400 students and raised $25,570.92. To date, the organizers have raised approximately $29,000 for CHSCF as fundraising efforts continue.
“It’s so rewarding. Standing up for 12 hours, then being able to see all the money we raised after,” said Katelyn Suski, Special Education-Learning Disabilities senior and MSU Dance Marathon’s fundraising chair. “Throughout the event, there’s stories about Cassie and her parents talk. It’s really inspiring what a bunch of students can do.”
The marathon had a variety of activities taking place throughout the day including line dancing, meals, performances, a dodgeball tournament and musical chairs.
Dance marathons are conducted throughout the Big Ten, the largest of which is Penn State’s THON, an enormous, year-long fundraising effort and a major campus event with more than a thousand participants and even more supporters.
In Penn State’s 41-year-old event, participants are on their feet for 46 hours to raise money for pediatric cancer. In total, THON has raised more than $101 million, including more than $12 million dollars this year alone.
Psychology freshman and Dance Marathon volunteer Kelsey Allan would like to see MSU’s marathon to grow to the size of other universities.
“It’s really, really fun, but no one even knows what (MSU’s Dance Marathon) is,” Allan said. “By the time I’m a senior, I want everyone to know about it.”
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