UConn’s HuskyTHON continues to make miracles happen

HuskyTHON, a year-long fundrais­er for Con­necti­cut Children’s Med­ical Cen­ter , took place March 4, 2023 at UConn

HuskyTHON has tak­en place now for mul­ti­ple years at UConn grow­ing more pop­u­lar each year. 

On the day of the event, stu­dents par­tic­i­pate in activ­i­ties like bull rid­ing, obsta­cle cours­es, and espe­cial­ly danc­ing. A spe­cial Morale dance, led by stu­dents on the moral team, takes place on the hour every hour to raise mon­ey for the kids at CCMC.  

HuskyTHON also allows the patients at CCMC to par­tic­i­pate in the activ­i­ties and share their sto­ries at the event. They call them mir­a­cle chil­dren and the whole day is ded­i­cat­ed to them. Most of the chil­dren who are involved are young patients who have under­gone major surg­eries and still seek treat­ment at CCMC.  

Many dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions at UConn par­tic­i­pate in huskyTHON. The big­ger orga­ni­za­tions are the ones that typ­i­cal­ly have a mir­a­cle child they hang out with dur­ing their time at the event.  

HuskyTHON has many dif­fer­ent lead­er­ship roles. There are vol­un­teers that help set up and run dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties, dancers who are part of an orga­ni­za­tion and dance every hour, dancer rep­re­sen­ta­tives who look after the mir­a­cle chil­dren dur­ing the day and are in charge of their organization’s fundrais­ing, morale cap­tains who are some of the top fundrais­ers that learn and teach the dances to every­one, and the man­age­ment team who orga­nize and put togeth­er the event.  

One of the dancers who was part of the Alpha Phi Greek orga­ni­za­tion, Car­ley Schmidt, a sopho­more and first-year dancer had a lot to say about how amaz­ing her time was at the event. “It was awe­some and so great to dance with my friends for a good cause.”  

When asked if it was a chal­lenge to stay the whole time Car­ley stat­ed, “I thought it was going to be hard to stay but there was nev­er a moment where I want­ed to leave. It was such an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence.” 

To get a more in-depth look at all the work that went into HuskyTHON one of the man­age­ment team mem­bers, senior, Jade Strass­ner, gave insight into the work it takes to put on such an extra­or­di­nary event.  

Strass­ner was the Co-Direc­tor of Dancer Rela­tions. Her posi­tion entailed being the liai­son between the inter­nal Man­age­ment team and the rest of HuskyTHON. All infor­ma­tion that she need­ed to get out to the pub­lic would go through Strass­ner then to the cap­tains of each team at week­ly meet­ings and in week­ly digests sent out through email. 

“Hon­est­ly, a lot of work went into HuskyTHON this year! I think the hard­est part about this year was that we had to attend all Man­age­ment, Mem­ber­ship, Morale, and DR Meet­ings which took about 9 hours each week.” Strass­ner said when asked about her time com­mit­ment to HuskyTHON. 

Strass­ner also men­tioned that one of the rea­sons she is so com­mit­ted to this orga­ni­za­tion is because she has a per­son­al con­nec­tion to the cause and CCMC.  

“I have been a patient of Con­necti­cut Chil­dren’s since I was younger and still see my doc­tors and the nurs­es at the infu­sion cen­ter. Par­tic­i­pat­ing in HuskyTHON with my soror­i­ty fresh­man year opened my eyes as to what this orga­ni­za­tion does for kids like me, and I knew I want­ed to get more involved to give back!”