For The Kids – THON

Mini-THON? Many of you are probably wondering what this is. If you have heard of Penn State, you might have heard of THON. Well, THON is a student-run charity effort that raises money to help families impacted by childhood cancer. The students that have helped run THON have successfully created the worlds largest student run philanthropy. 4000 families helped, 157,000,000 dollars raised, and 16,500 student volunteers. This is quite an amazing accomplishment as well as a great opportunity to help those in need. Students, volunteers, and families join together in Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center. For 46 hours, volunteers give kids and their families the opportunity to forget about their cancer diagnosis through a no sitting, no sleeping dance marathon.

Mini-THON was a much smaller form of THON that my high school put on. Lewisburg Area High School, where I went to high school, partnered with the company behind THON to create a “mini” THON. To raise money for THON, students either ask for donations or pay a small amount for a ticket.

I remember going around and “selling” for Mini-THON. Selling for Mini-THON was a much different form of selling than traditional selling of products or services. Nonetheless, this was still selling. I had to sell the idea that it would be more beneficial to donate to the kids rather than keep their money for themselves. To me this was a very easy task. Effective salesmen must be genuine and authentic and to me this is something that is very important. It was very easy to talk about Mini-THON and the benefits that their money would present to the kids. I had to convince people that donating would be the better choice. Myself, as well as my peers used our interest and genuine care for this subject to help ourselves raise money. Successfully, we raised over $25,000.

THON is coming up this weekend, check out their site: https://thon.donordrive.com/