When Julia Duemler was a little babe with long, coiled albino hair, her ancestor would backpack her on his amateur and sing “You Are My Sunshine.”
“Like, I was the sunshine on his shoulders,” she said.
His afterlife 10 years ago from colon blight was adverse to Julia, afresh aloof 11 years old. This weekend, Julia, still antic those continued albino curls as a apprentice at Pennsylvania Accompaniment University, will anticipate a lot about her father. She’ll ball for him. She’ll ball adjoin cancer, and she’ll ball for all the accouchement who accept it — and for those who accept exhausted it.
Julia, a chief from Montgomery County, is one of added than 700 apprentice dancers accommodating in Penn State’s 46-hour ball marathon, accepted as THON. It’s billed as the world’s bigger student-run philanthropy, applique $168 actor for pediatric blight analysis and ancestors abutment back it started about a bisected aeon ago.
About 16,500 acceptance — about 20% of the apprentice anatomy not counting its World Campus — volunteer, bushing a array of roles including accessible relations, security, abutment for dancers, hospitality, and fund-raising. Abounding apprentice organizations, including fraternities and sororities, able-bodied teams, and clubs, participate, as do the added Penn Accompaniment campuses. Each alignment is commutual with families afflicted by cancer, and acceptance absorb time with the families during the year and afresh on the ball floor. Donors can achieve accepted pledges or ambition money adjoin specific dancers or groups at https://donate.thon.org.
While abounding added ample universities authority ball marathons as fund-raisers, Penn State’s is a avant-garde that others accept approved to emulate, said Linda Durant, carnality admiral of development at the Council for Advancement and Abutment of Education in Washington.
“Students are seeing immediate the appulse of adopting money and what that can do, and how that can be fun at the aforementioned time,” she said.
Thousands will backpack the Bryce Jordan Center for bang off at 6 p.m. Feb. 21 — coincidentally, the ceremony of Julia’s dad’s afterlife — afresh watch dancers until its cessation at 4 p.m. Feb. 23. Once it starts, the rules say, dancers may not sit or sleep. They can, however, booty abbreviate breach to absorb their anxiety in ice, use the bathroom, or get a piggyback ride.
Julia has prepared: She weaned herself off caffeine (to abstain activity crashes) and has been alive out bristles times a week. Her mother and sister will be there to abutment her. So will her father, in a way.
“I’m dancing for my sunshine," Julia said, "which is my Dad.”
A chase for four diamonds
The aboriginal THON, admitting it wasn’t alleged that initially, was captivated in 1973, with aloof 78 dancers. It aloft a little over $2,000. By 1977, the Four Chunk charity, based at Penn Accompaniment Children’s Hospital in Hershey, became THON’s sole almsman afterwards acceptance heard its founder, Charles Millard, on a campus radio show. Millard had absent his son, Christopher, to blight at age 14, and he and his wife started the alms to advice added families.
Four Chunk got its name from a adventure that Christopher wrote about a knight’s chase for four diamonds, which adumbrated courage, wisdom, honesty, and strength, a account Christopher’s ancestors saw as allegorical of his action adjoin cancer. The adventure was angry into a Disney TV cine in 1995.
Millard, now 91 and active in Washington state, has alternate annually for THON, and over the decades, its fund-raising ability has grown. In 1983, it hit six figures, afresh anesthetized $1 actor in 1992. Every year, acceptance were accessories at intersections and at storefronts from Boston to Washington, captivation cans and soliciting donations, “canning” as it was called.
THON’s anniversary record, $13.3 million, came in 2014. Afresh THON phased out canning afterward the afterlife of a apprentice in a car blow as she alternate with others from a canning weekend in Chester County. Donations fell.
Penn State's THON to appearance out canningStill, THON, which angry to added online fund-raising and brought in $10.6 actor aftermost year, is amenable for added than bisected the money Four Chunk receives annually, acknowledging 400 to 500 families, said Suzanne Graney, controlling director. THON additionally has aggressive added than 260 “mini-THONs” at aerial schools in bristles states, which aloft $7.2 actor for Four Chunk aftermost year. Julia helped alpha one at her aerial school, Upper Perkiomen.
The money fills gaps that allowance does not, such as pharmacy costs and co-pays, and provides art and music therapy, counseling and logistical abutment to accouchement and their families, Graney said.
THON, she said, “made a huge, huge aberration in what we’ve been able to accomplish, in agreement of what we can action in absolute abutment to the families and what we can do to attending for a cure.”
Comfort in a aphotic time
Julia knows what it’s like to feel that affectionate of support. Afterwards her father’s diagnosis, a bounded charity, now alleged For Pete’s Sake, beatific the Duemlers to Disney World for a week. Julia remembers the abundance that cruise brought at such a aphotic time.
“Just actuality able to accept fun for a anniversary and not anticipate about blight or chemotherapy, I absolutely chronicle that to THON,” she said.
Julia was 8 back her ancestor got sick. She remembers it as a ambagious time back her grandmother babysat a lot.
“I aloof acquainted actual abandoned and didn’t apperceive what was activity on,” said Julia, a mathematics major. “I capital to advice my Dad feel better, but I didn’t apperceive what to do.”
Dave Duemler founded and ran Demco Automation, which designs and articles automation systems. Antic an able-bodied body and ample smile, he was a top-ranked affiliate of the U.S. luge aggregation and competed in the World Cup series.
This bounded brace refuses to let patients action blight battles aloneA alum of the above Spring Garden College, Duemler became an ardent Penn Accompaniment fan, acknowledgment to his wife, Lisa Dent (Duemler), a 1984 graduate. The ancestors abounding football amateur and vacationed with added alumni.
Then came cancer. But Duemler was bent to achieve the best of his time. “If it’s not fun, I’m not accomplishing it," he said. That led to ad-lib ancestors weekend trips, from Hershey Park to the beach.
Duemler died at 46. But afore his death, he volunteered with For Pete’s Sake and served on its lath of directors. That ashore with Julia. Even back he was at his sickest, her ancestor anticipation of others.
A faculty of pride
Like football and tailgating, THON has affiliated ancestors of Penn Accompaniment families. Julia’s mom danced for her sorority, Delta Gamma, back she was a student. That’s the aforementioned abode that Julia will ball for.
“I bethink it actuality tough,” Lisa Dent (Duemler) said. “You’re affectionate of zombie-ish.”
Julia’s uncle, above U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, additionally danced as a apprentice for his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, but didn’t absolutely finish. He had a balmy cold, he recalled.
“I anticipate I danced for about 30-some hours, and afresh there was a amplitude break, and that’s the aftermost affair I remember,” said Dent, who works for the law close DLA Piper and is a CNN contributor. “Apparently, I had anesthetized out."
He alternate a few years ago back his babe helped out.
“You get an cutting faculty of pride about how these acceptance approach all this activity for a absolutely important cause,” he said.
Julia’s earlier sister, Anna, got complex in THON her apprentice year and danced in 2018. She danced for her dad, too.
“It’s such a fun, blessed place," Anna said of THON, "and as you apperceive that’s what my dad was all about, abnormally at the end.”
Anna, who got her amount in analysis and works in the ovarian blight analysis lab at the National Institutes of Health, still keeps added than 50 belletrist that accompany and ancestors wrote to her afore she danced. She pulls them out and reads them if she feels sad.
“I will be auspicious you on the absolute weekend," her best acquaintance wrote, "but added importantly, your dad will be auspicious you on and dancing with you.”
Penn State's THON raises added than $13 millionNow, it’s Julia’s turn. She’s bent to finish.
“Everything I do now has consistently been about aggravating to achieve my dad proud,” she said. “That’s how I alive my life, including THON.”
Reporter Susan Snyder is a ancestors acquaintance of the Duemlers. She will address alive updates on THON throughout the weekend on Inquirer.com and broadcast a aftereffect adventure about THON’s accepted president, Huntingdon Valley’s Regina Duesler, on Monday, Feb. 24.
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