Each year Penn State students and the entire Penn State community rally around an event that is an example to the rest of the world. In a few weeks, 2011 THON will be here, but a critical fundraising push for The Four Diamonds Fund, which fights pediatric cancer, is happening now.
There are moments in life where you get lucky, and you’re asked to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Last Friday I had one of those nights. I arrived at Capitale in New York City to emcee The Hope Gala–a fundraiser for THON. Nearly 250 people crowded in at around $200 a head to be a part of the event.
As THON approaches, be sure to find it in your heart to do something—write a check or just go up to support the dancers. Everything helps. For today’s column, I want to share with you the closing comments I made to all the guests in attendance:
How fitting is it that the Hope Gala is in New York City? A place where the hopes of people around the world have resided for centuries.
My hope and your hope tonight is what brought all of us here.
Hope is how the Four Diamonds Fund families make their way through the difficult challenges they face with their children. It is the lighthouse that guides the children safely toward the shores of remission and recovery.
Those children and our THON students are an example to us. They show us joy in the face of sorrow, happiness in the midst of pain; they show us how to dance when all of our mind and spirit tells us to sit down. They show us that resilience, perseverance and fighting on are the only way to face adversity.
I am the father of five young children, and I love seeing my children laughing, running, playing and doing what children do. But I think of how a diagnosis like the ones these families receive would hit me.
It was that thought that brought me to tears in the BJC during Family Hour. Families told their stories, and the good that comes from the hard work of so many college students at Penn State.
Tennis great and humanitarian Arthur Ashe once said:
“True heroism is remarkably sober. Very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”
These students at Penn State are serving others at a huge cost—hours, days, weeks and months of sacrifice. Canning for money, putting together the logistics of the event, standing on their feet for two days, pain, passion and some more pain.
All of that to benefit young people—some they know and some they will never know. Some they will save and some will be lost despite their best efforts.
But each year they serve THON at whatever cost, and for that they are truly heroic in my eyes and the eyes of the families they help and the eyes of Penn Staters everywhere.
My day job is in coaching, and we talk about success with honor. Over the history of the human race, man has always grappled as a society and as individuals over what defines “success.”
I offer you Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition of success:
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
Tonight as we conclude, know that all of you in some way have played a part in the success of this event, the success of the effort and cause we support and most importantly in the lives of children that are made better and healthier by your presence here.
I love what THON does; I love what this Hope gala does for THON. But the hope I have tonight is that someday THON, and this gala supporting THON, will have to go looking for another worthy cause, because we will have found the cures and the treatments that will end all pediatric cancer for all time.
For while we celebrate the successes, we must also keep in our hearts the knowledge that not all the pediatric cancer stories end in victory. Many lose their fight each day, month and year, and for them we must soldier on.
The students of THON are filled with a sense of urgency. They pick up the flag and lead the charge knowing that the clock is ticking — ticking toward another diagnosis delivered, and potentially another child lost.
Armed with that knowledge and inspired by the examples we’ve seen, we follow their charge to ultimately vanquish pediatric cancer.
Thank you, and We Are…
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