For the past 24 years, the University of Connecticut community has come together to celebrate HuskyTHON, a year-long fundraising event where students raise money for the patients and families a part of Connecticut Children’s, a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.
On Saturday, March 2, this year’s fundraising came to an end at the HuskyTHON annual dance marathon. The event took place in the Hugh S. Greer Field House from 6 a.m. to midnight, where students spent time dancing every hour on the hour for the miracle children and their families.
This year proved to be HuskyTHON’s most successful year yet, gaining 4,410 participants, the highest number yet, and raising a record-breaking $1,736,591.22 overall for patients and their families.
Although many think of HuskyTHON as just the dance marathon, Executive Director Mackenzie Lynch explained that so much goes into the event, including other fundraising days and a lot of hard work by organizers and participants.
Lynch said that the 4,410 participants include a management team of 31 people and those registered, which encompasses volunteers, dancers, rising leaders, dancer representatives, captains and morale captains.
After being a dancer last year, fourth-semester political science and human rights major Bailey Brake decided she wanted to get more involved as a morale captain.
“In morale, you recruit dancers, create the morale dance, as well as pump people up while teaching others the dance at the dance marathon. You have to raise more money for it, but oh my gosh, it’s so so fun,” Brake expressed.
As well as being a morale captain, Brake applied to be the HuskyTHON chair and secretary for HerCampus UConn, an all-female magazine on campus. Any organization or club can register as its own team, so last summer Brake registered HerCampus UConn as a team.
I think HuskyTHON has such a widespread impact on campus because childhood illness affects so many people whether or not we realize it.
Executive Director of HuskyTHON, Mackenzie Lynch
“I started the HerCampus team in June when I registered and then recruited people to join our team. All the collective money that everyone raised went to our team total, which ended up being around $7,000,” Brake said.
Throughout the year, participants and teams partook in many fundraising events and days, according to Lynch. Some of these events included a kickoff to get students excited about HuskyTHON, tabling and advertising around campus to get the community engaged and interested, a 5k fundraiser, push days and a Day of Strength.
“Day of Strength, which is 10 days before the dance marathon, is where we encourage our community to fundraise as much as possible. That day, we raised $373,000 in 24 hours, which is amazing,” Lynch said.
Brake expressed that she and HerCampus participated in many of these events and found different ways to fundraise. This included asking local grocery stores to put fundraising cans at their cash registers and encouraging customers to donate. Brake also asked family, friends and old teachers while posting on Instagram asking people to donate.
Nicky Amter, a fourth-semester electrical engineering major, also participated in HuskyTHON as a part of his fraternity’s team, Alpha Sigma Phi. He asked friends and family for donations while also utilizing social media.
“A lot of the money I fundraised came from posting on my Snapchat story. One fundraiser I did was I posted, ‘Donate 2 dollars, and I will add your picture to my phone wallpaper,’ and as people donated, I made a collage of pictures to be my wallpaper,” Amter said.
On the day of the dance marathon, while the event began at 6 a.m., morale captains like Brake arrived at the field house at around 5 a.m. to welcome people and cheer them on as they came in.
Along with the morale dance, which happened every hour on the hour for 10 minutes, many activities were set up for students to participate in, according to Lynch. Some of the activities included blow-up inflatables, a silent disco, a hair donation station, food trucks, volleyball, dodgeball, spike ball and yoga.
At around 10 a.m., the miracle children began to arrive with their families to celebrate the event. Each team has its own miracle child assigned to them, and throughout the day, they spend time enjoying the activities together, according to Brake.
“Our miracle child’s name was Dahlia and she was just the sweetest. It was so cool to interact with her and have fun. It was her day like whatever she wanted to do, we would do,” Brake said.
Lynch explained that the children’s families would share their stories during the day so the UConn community could celebrate them. Having worked on the fundraiser all year, Lynch felt that spending time with the families made it feel like all her hard work was worth it.
“Being able to connect with them one on one throughout the day, seeing the joy on these kids’ faces, and seeing everybody come together was just absolutely incredible. It was probably one of the best days of my life,” Lynch said.
Although the goal is to aid children, HuskyTHON also helps form a sense of community on campus, said Lynch.
“I think HuskyTHON has such a widespread impact on campus because childhood illness affects so many people whether or not we realize it. We want a day when we no longer have to have a HuskyTHON because there’s no more childhood illness. So, it’s a cause that brings people together, and it’s amazing to be able to see such a positive turnout,” Lynch said.
Amter agreed, stating that being part of a team raising money made it feel like he was making a real impact.
“When the miracle kids come on the day of the marathon, and you get to talk to them and meet them, you get to see where the money’s going and the impact you’re making with your fundraising,” Amter said.
Despite the recent success, plans for HuskyTHON 2025 have already been announced on the HuskyTHON Instagram. A steering board meeting was held in the union on March 4, and applications for those interested in becoming a steering board member are now open.