Last Saturday, around 2,000 students filled the field house for UConn’s annual 18-hour non-stop dance marathon, HuskyTHON.
HuskyTHON’s management and morale teams greeted the dancers with loud cheers as they entered the field house. Immediately, students searched the walls for their organization’s banner. They quickly claimed their turf in front of their banners and in a matter of minutes, the perimiter of the field house was covered in backpacks and overnight bags.
For the first few and the last few hours, the participants were joined by 40 miracle families, whose children have received treatment at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. The personal stories these families told of their hardships and their children’s near-death experiences gave hope and shed light on the dancers, as they could see singlehandedly the impact they were making on the families and CCMC.
There were bouncy houses and other games, which made for an exciting night for the kids. There were booths with activities to keep the dancers preoccupied, and each hour was marked by the morale team’s catchy choreographed dance to a handful of popular songs. To keep the energy high, the night was segregated into different themes. The night began sporting husky pride, but quickly switched to decades. Appropriately, the theme from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. was pajamas, although immediately after the dancers shimmied into rave apparel for a more aggressive two hours of dancing and head bobbing.
Dancers were relieved by what seemed like the golden ticket, a certain color dot on their wristbands declaring the certain section in which they could eat. The food was served every few hours. It ranged from hamburgers and fries, to deli sandwiches.
It is incredible to see how one event can unite thousands of UConn students and the town of Storrs for such an empowering cause.
This year’s infamous HuskyTHON raised the most it ever has: a whopping $457,581.04. Congratulations to HuskyTHON’s dedicated management team, and the thousands of participants that shook their feet for 18 hours!