Finally, my time as a dancer relations committee member had come to an end for the year. For the final four hours, my committee and I stood in the stands together and really took in our last few moments of what we had worked so hard for. It was all very emotional. Typically, in the final four everyone floods the stands and families come out to talk. There are also a videos that are shared that are meant to help the dancers get through the toughest four hours of THON.

One of those videos is the Fallen Angels video, which shows all of the Four Diamonds children who lost their fight to cancer. This video really struck a chord for me for two reasons:

1. On my committee we were lucky enough to actually have a four diamonds child as a committee member. He quickly became one of my closest friends, so this video reminded me how lucky I am to have him in my life everyday. He is such an amazing person, and I am so thankful that he has been cancer-free for 5 years.

2. However, this video also reminded me of my grandfather, who sadly lost his battle with cancer just three weeks before THON weekend. We were very close, and it is still a difficult loss to process. But back in High school, I had started working with Four Diamonds because of him. I know that THON is focused on pediatric cancer, but the research they are doing is ground breaking. My grandfather had always loved the Four Diamonds and my involvement in THON, so it was sad to see it all come to a close.

Needless to say, I was crying for four hours straight. This committee had become my family, and quite truthfully saved my freshmen year experience. It was like the perfect ending to a movie as we counted down the last ten seconds before we could sit. My feet, my legs, and my back were all hurting in a pain I had never experienced before. Finally, we could sit down. It felt amazing in ways I honestly can not describe.

After we sat down the totals were revealed. These totals were broken down into organization types ( i.e. sorority/ fraternity, committee, etc.). I am proud to say that Dancer Relations placed number one out of committee fundraisers, and my sorority placed second out of greek life. I was so proud of my contributions, and I could not have asked for a better THON experience. Finally, after a year of effort, the final total for THON 2020 was revealed. Once I saw the number, I started crying yet again. I felt like we all made such an impact for these kids and their families. We raised $11,696,943.38 for the kids, FTK.