Brighten Every Journey

 This is the promo video for THON 2012, featuring footage from THON 2011.

Over 15,000 student volunteers. A 46-hour dance marathon. Singing for a cure. Dancing for a cure. Celebrating for a cure. Fighting for a cure.

The final countdown: 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Everyone holds his or her breath. You could hear a pin drop in the packed Bryce Jordan Center for that brief moment and the numbers began to go up. The moment of truth…

$10,686,924.83.

You read that right - 10.69 MILLION DOLLARS raised by a single university… by the single largest student-run philanthropy in the world, in less than one year.

The BJC erupts in cheers and tears of joy… of pride… suddenly re-energized after an exhilarating, exhausting weekend.

In the previous 46 hours leading up to the final reveal I had never been more moved by anything in my life. I watched my university come together and rally around a cause. I witnessed my university of some 40,000 students show the world who we really are - a family. A family who, in spite of the negativity and shadow forced upon us due to the events that occurred just a semester prior, was showing the world what we really stand for.

For those that are unfamiliar, THON is a 46-hour annual dance marathon run by the students of Penn State University. According to the THON website (www.thon.org), the mission of the PSU Dance Marathon “is to conquer pediatric cancer by providing outstanding emotional and financial support to children, families, researchers, and staff of The Four Diamonds Fund.”

The Four Diamonds Fund is there to offset the cost of treatment that insurance does not cover and is part of Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. It is the sole beneficiary of THON’s fundraising. Since THON’s beginning in 1973, Penn State has contributed over $78 million to the Fund (www.thon.org).

This past weekend I was moved to tears listening to the stories of the families that benefit from the Fund, the outpouring of support and dedication my school had for these families, and the strength my school had to stay focused on what Penn State really stands for in light of overwhelming scrutiny.
There were lessons to be learned this weekend in the BJC.

I saw the beauty of the human spirit. This weekend opened my eyes to the positive impact a group of people can have on the lives of others - be it on a large scale such as THON, or a smaller personal scale. I witnessed the beauty of compassion and of the human soul - the warmth that can grow within you simply by bringing warmth to the lives of others who are fighting a harder battle.

I saw the perseverance of the human spirit - in the children and the families being uplifted, in the students supporting them, and in the Penn State family that did nothing short of dispelling people’s misinformed perceptions of what we stand for.

For 46 hours, children and family who have been long battling deadly illnesses were free of worries. They danced, smiled, and participated in activities with the knowledge that all of it was being done for them… because people cared about them and believed in their strength to carry on. What a feeling that must be. It was an unbelievable display of living life to the fullest… of cherishing every moment.

This weekend was a reaffirmation that in a world of pain and strife, internal beauty and compassion remain. In a world where it is far easier to “sweat the small stuff” and be consumed by personal obstacles, people still see the bigger picture - even if it just for a weekend. In a world where too many are too quick to turn a blind eye, some 15,000 students rallied together to make a difference. The only reward they would reap from their efforts was the smile on the Four Diamonds children’s faces and the solemn knowledge that they were contributing to something bigger than them.

According to the THON website, it costs $800 to spend one day in the lab in search of a cure. That means that this year Penn State has provided roughly 13,359 days of research.

When we say, “We Are,” this is what we mean. We dance to brighten every journey.

One day we will dance in celebration, but until then we dance for a cure… And together we will find one.

We are Penn State… and we are THON.

For The Kids.

A Gesture

As I pushed through my first week working at The Daily Collegian, a particular article assignment caught my attention and struck a cord deep within me. The article was to be about Penn State students who would be shaving their heads in honor of children with cancer. While that gesture would have been enough to move me on its own, it took me back for a particular reason. It brought me back to a personal experience that I think my mind had been trying so hard to block out.

My sophomore and junior years of high school I witnessed my mom's battle with breast cancer. I remember vividly well the day my mom decided she was tired of watching her hair fall out little by little. It was time to shave it and be done with it. I accompanied my mom to the wig shop where her head would be shaved that day sure that I would be a strong support in her time of need. Little did I know that I would be the one to break down at the sight of my mom, so strong and so beautiful, accepting a loss that seemed so detrimental at the time.

I turned my face away as I began to cry, ashamed that she was the one suffering and I was the one crying. We had originally intended to go get lunch together afterward, but I was in no shape to be in public by the end of the process.

When we got home my dad was there to meet us at the door. He hugged us both and ran his hand over my mom's freshly shaven head. I still remember his chuckle as he commented on what a mediocre job the woman at the wig shop had done. He quickly grabbed my mom's hand and led her up to their bathroom where he took out his electric razor and proceeded to even out her baldness as I looked on, still uneasy. And as he and my mom continued to giggle and find the humor in this sad situation, my dad turned the razor on himself and spontaneously shaved his head clean. I all of a sudden had two equally bald parents. For the first time all day, I cracked a smile.

That day there were no words that could have made me feel better. But as my dad shaved off patches of the hair he was so proud of still having, I realized the importance of a gesture. No one can always have the right things to say or the remedy to all problems, but sometimes a gesture as small as this can tell a person you are there without having to say a word.

That day my parents were both beautiful in my eyes, despite their physical alterations. That day I learned what it meant to say everything that needed to be said without ever speaking a word.

Hatred and Healing

Earlier this week my brother posted and article on his facebook. It's a lengthy read, but so sickening and so saddening that I couldn't stop reading. The article, "One Town's War on Gay Teens" from the Rolling Stones magazine, chronicles the bullying of LGBT youth in Anoka, Minnesota and the subsequent rash of teen suicides throughout the school districts.

The article essentially brought me to tears. It's a sad world when students don't feel safe in school, where adults are intended to be there to teach and to protect. I think it has become all too common to turn a blind eye to bullying, to teach hatred, and to choose to pretend that there aren't real issues at hand. It's near impossible in today world for a child to go to school and not feel the pressure of peer acceptance and the constant search for ones identity. This is certainly difficult enough without the added hatred that was spewed at these teens by peers and adults alike.

In the article it says, "I ask for a show of hands: How many of you feel safe at school? Of the 19 kids assembled, two raise their hands." That statement really hit home with me. Roughly 10 percent of all of the kids asked this question felt safe in school. School should be a place of learning and safety, not a place that imposes fear on those who attend it.

The hatred and ignorance shown by the faculty and many of the students in this particular area is certainly disheartening. At this day in age one would hope that people have learned from the mistakes in the past and want to avoid the tragedies that stem from such ignorance. Whether you agree with someone's lifestyle or not, they are still human. They still feel. They still deserve to live a life of comfort, not fear.

After multiple suicides and reforms, the school district established their first Gay-Straight Alliance. The Alliance is still a topic of controversy in the area, but the kids have had enough. They are tired of seeing their peers, friends, and siblings driven into such despair that they feel the desire to die is stronger than the desire to live. They know that words hurt.

As one student said, "I joined the GSA 'cause . . . I wanted to be nice and - loved." This story reaches beyond the realm of bullying over a teen's sexuality. It sheds a light on bullying of all kinds and the impact that words can have on a person's spirit. You should never take away someone's hope... it may be all they have.

Westboro Baptist Church: Rhetorically Clueless or Rhetorically Genius?

image from: http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=21882

Hate them or... hate them, it's still an obsession.

The Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their hateful pickets against LGBT rights, American servicemen and women, Judaism, and well... just about anything. They are constantly met at picket sites with strong opposition and sometimes assaulted for attempting to spread their poisonous messages. The mere mentioning of the church is enough to send anyone into a fury. So, clearly their message isn't being accepted. Clearly, they are making no progress is convincing the world that their version of God's word is the accurate version. So, why don't they just give it up?

When it comes down to it, the rest of the world considers the members of this so-called church to be hate-spewing, uncompassionate, crazy people. And those words are far more tame than anything I would like to call them. It's blatantly obvious that their use of rhetoric is ineffective in proving their point. Rather than logically making their arguments or stating their beliefs, they choose to throw heinous signs and chants in the faces of the public. They lack any appeal to logos. After all, in what alternate universe is it logical to think the Bible literally states that "God hates fags" or that we should be thankful for dead soldiers and believe they are a divine punishment. I'm sorry but I have a very difficult time finding and logic in that. Find me a direct quote or get God on the phone... then maybe I'll see a little more logic in those arguments. They also lack any appeal to ethos. Their actions make it beyond impossible to respect them or their opinions and beyond that, they can hardly call themselves a church. The majority of their members seem to be people, within the Phelps family, who have been brainwashed from birth to spread their hateful messages. It's difficult to find any credibility in a group of people who can hardly attract a single new member unless they were born directly into the church. In fact, the only thing they appeal to is pathos, and if anything, they're only persuading people's emotions to develop more hatred towards them.

Doesn't sound like they know much about rhetoric to me.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, these people have made millions - and I mean millions - off of the lawsuits they have filed against the people who have physically assaulted them after being so offended by their messages over the years. So, what if that's their goal? To continue to fund their lives by getting such a rise out of people that they make a living simply by raising a sign and, for lack of better working, pissing people off. To some extent, I hope this is the case. The idea that they're using rhetoric to intentionally make money, despite how despicable it is, is more appealing than thinking they actually believe in such heinous values - in a sick way, albeit.

Either way, the people are sick. The only emotion they appeal to in my mind is absolute disgust and I'd love to take a swing at them as much as the next guy. But, how about we stop throwing punches and get a conclusive answer: are they rhetorically clueless and just THAT crazy? Or, are the rhetorically genius and funding their comfortable lives by getting a rise out of the rest of us?

Something tells me it's a little bit of both.

This I Believe - Beauty From Pain