By: Dan Buser

Months and months of fundraising only to find out your rivals surpassed your efforts. This is the harsh reality of Hershey High school’s mini-THON.

When Hershey High school started mini-THON they were trend setters. They were the first high school in the local area to have a mini-THON, an activity that would later be copied by many other local high schools like Palmyra, Lower Dauphin, and Milton Hershey. However, while most schools start slow, the amount of money raised tends to increase every year. In recent years, Hershey has been surpassed by these other schools. But, Hershey’s mini-THON chairs this year are trying to bring Hershey back to the forefront of High School mini-THONs.

Rachel Schirato, a mini-THON chair for Hershey, said a potential reason why Hershey raises significantly less money than other schools is because the student body is not as involved as other schools.

In a survey conducted, only 55% of 40 students in all grades said they have gone to Mini-THON at least once.  Schirato does not blame this on the students; however, she said it is the chairs jobs to get people excited. With that being said, Schirato says they are “striving to get the whole school involved.”

Schirato admits this is a large challenge considering Hersey only had about 300 students attend last year’s dance, compared to Milton Hershey’s 400 and Lower Dauphin’s 500 students.

THON is a dance marathon held at Penn State. The goal of thon is to raise money to help fight pediatric cancer. The money can be used for many things such as paying for children’s treatments or being used to research new treatments. Mini-THON’S are high school versions of THON.  There are more than 60 mini-THONs held state wide and they have raised $1,303,998.47.

Hershey’s THON Chairs are looking to their rivals as a source of inspiration.  Mary Smith, the overall THON chair at Lower Dauphin, says they hold at least one large fundraiser a month and are always trying to add more. They also hold several smaller fundraisers directed at small groups of people.

As for motivating students, she said they have never had a problem getting students involved. This year they are trying to beat last years value of $82,000, which Smith admits is really “shooting for the stars.”

Milton Hershey has had similar results in just their first year, although they had a different approach to getting there students involved. Simply, if you wanted to be part of an event the school was hosting, you had to pay to get in. Michelle Weber, Milton Hershey’s mini-THON chair, said these events are similar to fundraisers, but they know how much they’re going to make, rather than just relying on donations. This strategy lead to them making $80,000 and is hoping to raise $100,000 this year with the same methods.

Hershey is looking at how the other schools are succeeding and trying to find out how to get the same results out of their student body. They have already started fundraising this year. They held a movie night which made $700 and collected $391 from donor drive. Schirato says that trying to do better than their local rivals is something that will motivate lots of people at Hershey.  Smith would agree, saying that “a little competition can definitely motivate some students.”