By Margaux Rentzel

Social Media editor                    

For the 2019 school year, Ms. Jennifer Geiselman was brought in as an adviser, along with Ms. Beyer, a previous adviser, for the Mini-THON club. Gieselman has replaced Mr. Small as the Mini-THON adviser. 

Geiselman was asked last year by some of the Mini-THON committee members and student directors if they would be their adviser for the upcoming school year. “The students came to me at the end of last year,” Geiselman said, “and asked if I would be their adviser.” 

Geiselman is not new to Mini-THON. While she was a student at Red Lion, she participated in Mini-THON, which compelled her to be the advisor this year. “When I was in high school we had the chance to attend THON,” Gieslman said, “and it was a great experience.” 

THON is the event Penn State hosts which is the 48-hour event to raise money for childhood cancer. Red Lion has adopted the organization by holding their own 12-hour Mini-THON event in the spring of each school year. 

The Mini-THON committee members had to get used to the new leadership. “We were a little nervous about changing leadership because we were worried that the adjustment would put a lot of our fall fundraisers on hold,” sophomore Mini-THON adviser, Anna Heilman said, “but the transition went really well and we are excited for this upcoming year.” 

Under Gieslman’s leadership, Mini-THON has sold t-shirts for the white-out football game. “So far, to fundraise, we have done the whiteout football game,” Heilman said, “where we sold t-shirts as apparel for the game and collected donations.”

Mini-THON plans fundraisers and events all year to raise money for the big event in April. “This year Mini-THON has a bunch of new and exciting fundraisers for everyone to participate in,” Heilman said. “We are trying to focus this year on getting a lot of fundraisers that are aimed towards the students.” 

Mini-THON plans to host a Spook-a-THON on October 19. “More upcoming events we have are gift-wrapping in December, a spaghetti dinner in February,” Heilman said, “and Mini-THON in the spring!”

This year’s Mini-THON is in honor of Aaron Weiss, who lost the fight to cancer in 2014. Aaron would have been a senior this year. “We hoped that by honoring Aaron, the senior class would get excited and want to participate,” Heilman said, “because a lot of them knew Aaron or knew of him.”  

“Our overall Mini-THON fundraising goal this year,” Mini-THON director, Emily Hornberger said, “is over $50,000 dollars.” 

The money that Mini-THON fundraises goes directly to the Four Diamond fund. “It’s in honor of Aaron,” Gieselman said, “but it goes to the Four Diamonds Fund and they distribute it.”  

Mini-THON’s new leadership does not stop their passion for the cause. “New leadership under Ms. Gieselman is going really well,” Heilman said.