If You Asked

If you asked me a year ago, where we'd be now... I would've never imagined this.
Depsite my faith, my hope, my dreams, my confidence... I would've never imagined this.
Had you told me this would be hard... I would've never imagined this.

The one hundred and forty three days I spent as co-chair of THON at Penn State York were filled with love, laughs, stress, fights, late nights, meetings, events, 5Ks, Hershey trips, and a lot of money raised.

Just over a year ago, I danced for forty-six hours. I stood in line for bathrooms, couldn't shower for two days, rubbed my feet with tennis balls and dreamed of what my organization would accomplish over the next year.



In June, we had our first summer meeting and sat down to make goals. Short term and long term. My committee members scribbled their goals onto quarter sheets of paper.

"Beat last year's total!"

"Build a wishing well!"

"Get thirty members!"

My first and only goal at the time was to beat last year's total of $5,197.85. At the time, it was a number I was proud of. I can say that though we improved so much over the past year, I am still proud of that number. Ultimately, it was over $5000 which improved the lives of children with cancer and though it may not have been $100,000 plus raised by some organizations - it was still gas money for a family or part of a Four Diamonds Fund employee salary.

As time passed, I discussed reaching $10,000 and how happy I would be to make that happen. Then, to beat York's record which we were told was about $13,000. I remember laughing to Ryan and saying "Imagine if we raised $15 thousand" and I remember him telling me that I might be surprised.

Surprised isn't even the word for it.

In 143 days, my organization managed to raise $17,160.71. That averages out to just over $120 each day. With four canning weekends, a few sub sales, countless events and so many weekly meetings, we did it.

We beat last year's total.
We broke $10,000.
We beat our campus record.
We surpassed $15,000.
We made it into the top ten fundraising commonwealth campuses.
We raised $17,160.71

and it was beautiful.

This weekend, we joined the entire Penn State University in dancing, rejoicing and celebrating for forty-six hours. Angi and Sam rocked the floor for York and I was lucky to spend much of the weekend with them. I took on the jobs of co-chair/moraler/photographer/babysitter all at once and frankly, it was exhausting.

I've been without a computer and therefore.. unable to blog on any normal basis. But now that I've finally purchased one (more on that to come!), I've got a nine a.m. class calling my name. Look forward to regular blog posts once again and many more THON photos to come.. hundreds of them, actually.

But until then? Goodnight.