Kids dance for 12 hours

Mount Rock Elementary is hosting a Mini- Mini THON for grades kindergarten through fifth grade to raise money for the Four Diamonds Foundation, which helps families that have to deal with childhood cancer. The Mini- Mini THON will take place Tuesday, May 19 in the Mount Rock gymnasium and outside.

“Just because they are younger doesn’t mean that they can’t still raise money. Earlier in the school year, they did a Penny War, which is when every grade brought in any pennies that they could find to try to beat the other grade. They raised more than two thousand dollars. So we made our goal only one thousand dollars just to start a little small.” said Kelsey Hernjak, the adviser of the high school club. In addition, all the money that Mount Rock raises from the event, will be added to the overall total that will be revealed at the High School Mini Thon next year. 

Hernjak and her students thought of this idea from following other schools and how they include the younger generations as well. For now, they are only doing one of the elementary schools, but in years to come they are looking forward to spreading it to all three schools.

Mini Thon is a non profit annual fundraiser that consists of a twelve hour event with no sitting, just doing activities the entire time. The Four Diamonds Foundation has a mission to conquer childhood cancer by treating children at the Penn State Children’s Hospital.  

Depending on how much money they raise, they will be able to vote for which activities that they would like to see at the event. Hernjak and her club so far have thought of some sort of craft that they can make, inflatables, and possibly an obstacle course. But, the theme that they came up with is “Under the Sea ” and the day before they are doing a pep rally for the kids to get them excited for Mini THON. 

To get more people involved, Hernjak emailed coaches asking them to have some of their players help out with some of the stations, plus club advisers to see if some of their kids would be willing to help out with the pep rally because in Mini THON Club she only has twelve people and that is a lot for twelve people to do. Also, the kids love when older students help out. 

Every two years Big Spring High School hosts a Mini THON, which is a twelve hour event for students and staff to stay overnight doing fun activities such as inflatables, mechanical bull, sports tournaments, huge dance party and hair cutting. This night is dedicated to kids battling cancer, and raising all the money for them.

The Mini- mini THON will take place Tuesday, May 19 in the Mount Rock gymnasium and outside.