'The Bad Assets' Dance For The Kids!
This past weekend myself and six other MAcc students participated in BuckeyeThon. BuckeyeThon is the largest student-run philanthropy at Ohio State with an ultimate goal of ending childhood cancer. BuckeyeThon raises money to support the kids treated at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. More than 5,100 students registered for the 24 hour dance marathon with the ultimate goal of raising $1,000,000. Hearing about the event last semester we formed a MAcc team, "The Bad Assets", and raised money all For The Kids (FTK). BuckeyeThon is set up in 2 shifts of 12 hours each. During your shift you are supposed to stand for all 12 hours, showing that together, as a university, we stand with the kids through their fight. Our shift was from 11:00am to 11:00pm. Every team was assigned a color team and The Bad Assets were part of the Pink Team, so that is why all the pictures we are wearing pink.Before it started every color team met in an assigned room and they brought in one of the Miracle Kids and their family. This was a great chance to meet the people we were trying so hard to benefit. After that the official start was with the opening ceremonies which included multiple speakers ranging from the President of BuckeyeThon to the Vice President of Student Life. One of the speakers was a mother of one of the Miracle Kids. She told us about how her daughter was diagnosed and the struggle the family went through. Listening to her speak really put into perspective the impact we were making.
Throughout the day they had different things we could do to keep us on our feet. There obviously was plenty of dancing throughout the day. They also set up a lot of games. We played Gaga Ball for a couple hours which if you don't know what it is look it up, its incredibly fun. They had a tug of war competition between the different color teams (we got 2nd), and also had rooms where you could play board games or video games. Overall there was plenty of activities going on to help keep us busy and not think about sitting down.
As it got close to 11:00pm we gathered back to watch the closing ceremony and the big reveal of how much money was raised and if we reached our goal of $1 million. The closing ceremony had more speakers including a 14-year old Miracle Kid and three current Ohio State students who have personally been affected by cancer. The final reveal showed that we raised a total of $1.23 million all FTK. Overall it was a great experience and I would highly recommend participating to any students that get the chance.