Youth Summit Contributor: Abby Conroy
Last summer, students at Shenandoah Valley decided to get together and begin planning and fundraising for a Mini-THON. The group began with five students and by our event on March 23, 2019, approximately one hundred students came together to help fight pediatric cancer. Our initial fundraising goal was $5,000 which meant we had to come up with several fundraising ideas to reach this goal.
To begin our fundraising journey, we held a Gold Out Game. September is the month for Pediatric Cancer. To show our support, Mini-THON sold gold shirts and had a stand at a football game to raise awareness. We sold about 200 shirts and got a lot more people interested in Mini-THON!
Fundraisers we did at school were dress down and tournaments. "Costumes for a Cause" was on Halloween and students paid to dress in their Halloween costumes. Our next dress down was right before Thanksgiving break. Along with our dress down, we held a Flag Football Tournament in the gymnasium. Other various dress downs were held throughout the year in support of Mini-THON as well.
Dine-Outs at local restaurants were other successful fundraisers. McNiff's and the Redzone in Mahanoy City, Vernalis' in Shenandoah, and Roman's in Frackville chose a night that they would donate a percentage of their profit to our Mini-THON. We also had Chill Out Ice Cream Parlor and the Tastee Freeze ask costumers if they would like to donate to our cause. These generous businesses really helped get the word out about our event.
March 23 rolled around and our Mini-THON was a success! At our event we sold shirts, had food, held a video game tournament, held various tournaments in the gym, and danced! Our students worked so hard all year to surpass our goal of $5,000.