When asked to spend ten hours at school on a Saturday, the responses elicited from most students would likely be unwilling groans and protests. However, when charged only $10 for food, drinks, entertainment, along with the chance to help children fight cancer, many students will jump at the opportunity. On March 25, about 250 students did just that when Southern Lehigh High School held its second annual Mini-THON.

The original THON began in 1973 at Penn State University to raise money for Four Diamonds, an organization that provides money to families who have a child with cancer and to supply money for pediatric cancer research. Since its origination, THON has vastly increased in participation. Mini-THON, modeled after THON, was started in 1993 and has also been rising in participation among high school, middle school and elementary school students. Senior Justine Groeber brought the first Mini-THON campaign to Southern Lehigh last year when she was a junior.

This year, Southern Lehigh doubled the number of students participating, and about 100 community members attended as well.

“Some of the most popular events that happened at our event this year was our big capture the flag and dodgeball games. Those always get students really hyped up and excited,” Groeber said. “One of the other crowd favorites was at the end of the night when we had [live bands] Above the Mendoza and Buying Time play, and had a glow hour while we jammed out to some awesome music.”

This year Southern Lehigh students raised $30,700.68 — two and a half times the amount raised in 2016, and $5,000 over the 2017 goal.

“I had Mr. Ruch hide the total from me until the final reveal, and that made the total reveal so much more awesome for me,” Groeber said. “When I was finally able to really digest how much we raised for Four Diamonds, I was overwhelmed with pride and happiness that our school was able to come together and raise so much.”

Junior Thomas Matsamura will be taking over as Mini-THON chairperson next year and plans to continue many of Groeber’s fundraising initiatives.

“The way Justine had it was incredible,” Matsamura said. “The biggest thing is to find a way to get more people to participate to be able to raise more money.”

Social studies teacher and student council adviser Mr. Troy Ruch supervises the Mini-THON committee and believes that Matsumura will do an excellent job filling Groeber’s shoes.

“Tom is very hard working,” Mr. Ruch said, “and he is willing to make it happen for a good cause.”