The Gift of Dance

At Penn State's THON, 48 painful hours translated to $4.1 million for children with cancer.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - By 1 a.m. yesterday, after 30 hours on her feet - no sitting, no sleeping - Penn State senior Christine Polcino sobbed. She had rubbed her feet with peppermint oil, wrapped ice packs on her knees, taped her ankles like a professional athlete, gulped down three Tylenol. Still, she wept.

"Everything hurts," she moaned, "like the hair on my head. My fingernails hurt." Her poor arches had fallen as much as her spirits.

Senior Jeff Sirkin, a graduate of Cheltenham High School, hugged Polcino, encouraging her: "You've been working for this for four years."

From 7 p.m. Friday to 7 p.m. yesterday about 700 students would try to stay on their feet, and thousands more would cheer and support them - all to raise a record $4.1 million for pediatric cancer patients at Penn State Children's Hospital at the Hershey Medical Center.

Sirkin stayed for a fifth year at college, taking out more student loans and picking up a second major, just so he could be one of the 16 overall chairmen of THON. He entered college an engineering major, but will graduate committed to becoming a fund-raiser for a nonprofit.

He is now so close to 6-year-old Robby Schweitzer, in remission from leukemia, that he intends one day to attend the boy's wedding.

"Think how hard you've worked for this," Sirkin told Polcino, who was still crying. "Think of this as a reward, not a punishment."

Easy for him to say. As a chairman, not a dancer, Sirkin had been able to crawl off to the squash courts and sleep - horizontal - for two dreamy, delicious hours.

In the 32 years since THON began, students have raised $30 million. The money goes into the Four Diamonds Fund. The nonprofit, supported almost entirely by THON, pays all expenses not covered by insurance for families dealing with pediatric cancer - treatments, hospitalizations, meals, even parking.

The name of the fund, started in 1972 by Charles Millard, comes from a fantasy story his son, Chris, wrote in eighth grade shortly before he died of cancer. Chris described the four diamonds: courage, wisdom, honesty and strength.

The Millards have moved from Elizabethtown, Pa., to Washington state, but Charles flies back every year for THON, and will for as long as he can walk. "There is nothing else happening like it in the country - in the world," he said.

THON dancers can't sit or sleep, but they sure can weep, whimper, walk into walls, hallucinate.

One couple, Gregory Mitstifer and Cynthia Jean Inman, got engaged on Saturday night, after 28 hours. He just dropped to one knee - that was legal - and proposed.

These dancers knew not if it was day or night - watches and cell phones were not allowed - and they were confined to the gym in Recreation Hall and one adjacent hallway and locker room. They weren't allowed to shower. They could wash their hair in locker room sinks. The dancers could sit for only one thing: nature's call. But only a handful of stalls, rank even by fraternity standards after 35 or 40 hours, ensured that nobody fell asleep on the throne or took too long.

When they were at their weakest, the dancers were buoyed by the scores of sick and now-healthy children and their families for whom THON weekend is better than Christmas.

The children swarmed the floor, lost to their parents for hours, blasting the college kids with squirt guns and being carried around the gym on the shoulders of dancers. They played football with the varsity players, hurled batons with the drill team, and got hoisted into pyramids by Penn State cheerleaders.

The Penn State athletes were among thousands of other students, parents and alumni who came to entertain and support the dancers and hang with the kids.

"It is truly amazing how college kids can give up so much of their time, energies and lives for families like mine," said Robby's mother, Julie Schweitzer of Mechanicsburg, Pa., who was at her fourth THON.

"It's like being a celebrity and walking the red carpet. All eyes are on you and you know that they are there for you and your child, giving all they have to fight cancer."

Every year, students raise about 60 percent of the money by shaking coffee cans on street corners all across Pennsylvania. The dancers raise as much as $5,000 apiece.

Chad Haas of York, Pa., was there with his son, Tucker, 4, who has a soft-tissue sarcoma and will get a stem cell transplant at the end of the month. "With Four Diamonds," said his father, "it's so nice to know you're not going to have to sell your house to get the treatment. It's such a relief. You have enough on your mind."

Friday afternoon: The dancers begin arriving. They seem to float, lifted by enthusiasm and euphoria. They dress in kilts and suits, heads shaved but for four diamonds or hair dyed pink or purple. Colin Williamson of Harrington Park, N.J., has packed 10 pairs of boxers, although the THON committee recommends - based on years of experience - that the men wear "supportive briefs." No college kid's going to wear anything but boxers.

Kyle Potter of Drexel Hill, a senior at Penn State's Delaware County campus, is wearing a THON T-shirt. On the back she has printed: "SleeplessinPSU."

As the clock approaches 7 p.m. all the dancers sit on the gym floor. Michelle Carbonell, a senior from Marlton, dancing in her first THON, lies on her back, feet straight up, pretending to pedal a bicycle in the air. "I figure for the next 48 hours, all the blood is going to be going the other way," she says.

10 seconds before 7 p.m.:Seth Moser, a fifth-year senior from Kennett Square and overall chairman of the event, counts down from the stage, "10, 9, 8...," and everyone is up on their feet. Larry Moore, 47, a Penn State alumnus who danced in THON in 1977 and has been the DJ for it ever since, plays the first song, "Let's Get It Started," by the Black Eyed Peas.

This is the fourth THON for Adam Sarcia of West Chester. He got lymphoma as a freshman at Henderson High School. "It just comes at you," he says of childhood cancer. "You wake up one morning and by the end of the day your whole world has changed."

"It was a long, difficult, tough road," he says of his chemo and radiation. "Nothing is more helpful than the emotional support you get from people. And THON is the world's greatest support system."

His girlfriend, Jill Rodini, who slept nearly 24 hours after THON last year, has come to wish him luck.

"He dances to give back for everyone who gave for him," Rodini says, "and so these kids can see him and realize they can make it through this."

Staying awake and on your feet for 48 hours, says Sarcia, is "a small taste of what it's like to have cancer. This whole weekend is like one rough day with cancer."

3:45 a.m. Saturday: Molly McShain, a junior from the Olney section of Philadelphia, rides up to Recreation Hall on her bicycle. It's 12 degrees outside, not counting windchill. She's carrying three large shopping bags filled with towels, snacks, Winnie-the-Pooh Pez dispensers, and even a cape for one of her sorority sisters who is dancing. A "moraler," she is one of about 1,000 members of the morale committee.

4 a.m. Saturday: The morale committee has turned countless hallways in Rec Hall into the "Magic Kingdom" and "Universal Studios." The throngs of dancers get to take a walk or stumble along a pathway of mattresses - a break for their weary feet - and look at wall decorations that are supposed to make them feel they are in Disneyworld. Some of the dancers are so tired, they have no clue where they are. "They just kept staring at us," says a student dressed as Cinderella. At the exit, students dressed as the Seven Dwarfs serenade the dancers back to the gym, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to dance we go."

5:15 a.m. Saturday: Ellie Abboud, a parent from Swarthmore, is on her hands and knees, slapping a wrestling mat and chanting "we want dancers." She's flanked by dozens of moralers. Suddenly, six dancers come sprinting and slide headfirst down the wrestling mats which are coated in talcum powder to make them slippery. A cloud of powder rises as the dancers slide by. At the end of the mats, Abboud and the moralers reach reach out and massage legs, backs and shoulders as they count to 10.

These dancers get 10 delicious seconds, then are back on their feet as the the next group comes sliding along.

"I'm here at 5 a.m. because that's when I can help the most," says Abboud whose daughter, Diana, is her third child to be involved in THON. "It's a wonderful tradition. The spirit of helping other people."

Noon Saturday: Sophie Restall, 10, in remission from lymphoma, plays a clarinet solo on the stage. Her father, Matthew Restall, a history professor at Penn State, is particularly tolerant of students who miss classes because of THON. "You get a week to recover," he tells them. "But after that, you're back in class."

6 p.m. Saturday:The dancers, all 700 of them, do a line dance, as they have every hour. It's the only consistent thing they do over 48 hours other than stand and eat. The dance gets them shouting, stretching and energized - imagine aerobics en masse.

1:30 a.m. yesterday: Sarcia squints in sleepless agony, his forehead a set of accordion wrinkles. He puts on headphones, cranks up the Jimmy Eat World on his mp3 player, and slowly wanders the gym floor. All around him others fight the boredom by bouncing balls, playing catch, doing crosswords, blowing bubbles. Like puppies, these students are wiped out one minute, frenetic the next. Thirty minutes later, Sarcia is shaking a hula hoop around his hips.

1:45 a.m. yesterday: The 700 dancers, their moralers, and thousands more in the bleachers are on their feet, singing and dancing to "Hey, Baby" by Bruce Channel. It's a frat party without beer - everybody drunk from exhaustion.

2:30 a.m. yesterday: Brian Ghigiarelli, a sophomore from Clarks Summit, Pa., stands right in front of the blasting loudspeaker by the stage. His feet hurt so bad the noise is a tonic. "You blow your ears right out, but never think about your feet," he explains.

3 a.m. yesterday: Mountains of mail from family and friends are distributed to the dancers. Around the gym, there is weeping as dancers read letters from home and open mindless gifts, perfect for mindless people on their feet for 32 hours. Jill Rodini gives Adam Sarcia a Legos car, designed for preschoolers. "It's something I know he can do when he's tired," she says.

6:47 a.m. yesterday:Dawn breaks on the final day. As the dancers round into their last 12 hours, the air inside Rec Hall grows hot and heavy. The dancers move like molasses.

12:23 p.m. yesterday:Jenna Meli, a senior from Effort, Pa., is being walked across the gym floor like an injured football player coming off the field. She is the definition of asleep on her feet. Her family has asked a moraler to walk her into the locker room to splash water on her face. It doesn't help. Meli's eyes are closed, her speech slurred. She can't answer questions. The moraler walks her back to a fence set up near the bleachers. Meli leans against it as her dance partner, Michael Macartney of Berwyck, literally holds her up. Her mother keeps kissing her hand. Hoping. Less than seven hours to go.

3:15 p.m. yesterday: The hall turns into a sea of tears. On the giant video screens - to the music of James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend" - faces of all the Four Diamonds children who have died appear. The dancers need no greater reminder of why they raised all that money, stood and suffered all these hours.

After the slide show, the children at THON and their families are cheered by the throng.

"What you are doing is living with a purpose," Carrie Steele-King, mother of 7-year-old Brayden, who has leukemia, tells the dancers. "I hope when you leave here you never forget that, never stop doing that."

6:30 p.m. yesterday: In the last hour, the entire hall is on its feet, clapping and singing rock and pop anthems. The dancers suddenly have bounce again - one last burst of youth before the collapse.

7 p.m. yesterday: After 2,880 minutes on their feet, they drop into 48 hours of filth. The floor never felt so good.

Again, congratulations to the students at Penn State. The largest student-run philanthropy in the world is quite an undertaking and these students never cease to amaze me.

If one ever gets the chance to witness it in person, it is quite a spectacle.

Thanks Penn Staters.

It's nice to encourage people to give money to good causes, but it's absolutely idiotic to waste time and energy on a pointless activity and claim that there is some connection between that and raising money for the cause. If these kids would ask friends and relatives to donate, and then put their time and energy into studying and/or volunteering as research assistants in a medical research facility, they'd be doing a lot more to help cure these cancers.

What specifically is "stupid" about it? Or do you just prefer hurling insults at anyone who disagrees with you, over supporting your opposing position with a clear argument? I supported my position with an argument, but you seem to have no counterargument to support yours.

I said your comment was stupid, not you.

You took it upon yourself to piss all over these students who made a pretty significant sacrifice to raise more money than any others before them.

I think there are plenty of kids studying to cure cancer. What should the business and other non-science majors do to help? Sit around on their asses and wait, or go out and raise some money.

It amazes me that you found fault with that article. Simply amazes me.

It has become a harmful fashion in our society to stage some big social or athletic affair, and claim it is all being done "for charity". From walk-a-thons/dance-a-thons to $10,000 a plate high society "charity" functions. The problem is, the function itself has no benefit to the charity, and in cases like the one mentioned in this article, where a bunch of college kids are driving themselves to unhealthy exhaustion in a meaningless activity, it's actually harmful. It all distracts from developing a more sensible and honest approach to charitable giving, which involves informing yourself as fully as possible about the various charities you might give money to and/or volunteer for, and then simply making the donation of money and/or time. Attention-grabbing functions like the one featured in this article often serve to distract attention and donations from other charities, which may be as or more worthy (whether because of the work they do, or because of their greater cost-efficiency). When some charities start aligning themselves with these extravaganzas, it can force other charities to the same, just to hold their own in the charity-dollar marketplace. The result is a proliferation of silly extravaganzas, not an increase in total dollars to charity, or better allocation of dollars to the most worthy charities.

So, without the Dance Marathon, the Four Diamonds Fund would get their $4 million where exactly? Do you know anything about the Hershey Medical Center? Do you know what they do there? Do you know what the Four Diamonds Fund does?

Funny, you call the students "idiotic", then accuse me of "name calling" when I call your post "stupid."

There are doctors everywhere at the Dance Marathon. No one has ever suffered any sort of injury or physical impairment from dancing.

Seems the kids with cancer (and their families) sort of appreciate this "silly extravaganza", much to your dislike apparently.

If you feel so strongly, write the Four Diamonds Fund a check for $4 million and tell the students to take next year off.

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