14,141 dollars and 12 hours later, North Penn’s Mini-THON proved to be a success! A Knight Crier preview for Mini-THON 2025 became a reality when Mini-THON advisors Ms. Machado and Ms. Burner brought life to the fun and impactful event.
“We’ve had a lot more kids than previous years. We also, right now, are in community hour from eight to nine and we’ve had a lot of people come in so far; so, we are really happy with it,” Burner remarked about the night during their community hour where visitors could come and join in on the festivities for an hour.
THON, which was originally started at Penn State University in 1973, has raised money for children battling cancer.
“I’m having a really good time so far. My high school at home does not do a lot of school organized events, so it’s fun to experience and see all the games they’re doing and it’s all for a good cause so that’s great,” Exchange student from the Netherlands, Cis Adams, said, comparing Mini-THON to her home school.
The event featured a multitude of festivities including visits from dogs, games like volleyball, and tons of food.
“We’ve played with puppies, we’ve played tons of games like can jam, volleyball, and corn hole,” commented senior Gia Babariya. Likewise, senior Lily Juska said, “We had pizza and we were dancing. They are doing a dance every hour on the hour, and now they are serving hoagies right now. It’s been a lot of fun.”
A little later, during community hour, a few families gave speeches on their personal experiences with cancer, which touched all.
First, a mother shared her story about her son who was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer as a baby and is now 17-years-old.
Then Ayva Dudley shared her personal battle with cancer. In just June of 2024, Ayva was diagnosed with a certain type of bone cancer, which affected her ability to walk.
“I took a lot of things for granted before I was diagnosed,” Dudley said, “I wasn’t able to walk for a while so I definitely took that for granted.”
She urges people to “let every minute count,” because the future is uncertain.
Dudley also shared how her personal encounter with cancer came with not only physical hardships but also the cruel bullying.
“When I had cancer a lot of people texted me, added me on Snapchat, saying ‘oh you probably got cancer for this, this, and this,’” Dudley said, “Bullying people with cancer and people in general just isn’t a good thing.”
Her strength comes with good news with the announcement she was in remission as of a few days before Mini-THON; she looks forward to ringing the bell.
The Mini-THON club has already hosted different events, spirit days and fundraisers.
“We had a stall day, there was a dodgeball tournament and all those occurred during the school year which [students] can help with,” Senior officer Jessica Awad said.
However, those aren’t the only opportunities for students to get involved. In other terms for Mini-THON, there will be hosting other fundraisers and events to look forward to.
“We will be doing more fundraisers at the end of the year to start fundraising for next year already, so keep an eye on the announcements for future fundraisers,” Machado said, “For the following years, keep in with the different spirit wears for spirit days that we do and different fundraisers and see if [you’re] interested to come next year!”
People all over can continue to show their support for the Four Diamonds organization, which has been around since 1972, by visiting their website and continuing to donate and look for other chances to get involved.
