Aggiethon: USU students raise support and awareness for Primary Children’s Hospital
In its third year of raising support for children treated at Primary Children’s hospital, the Utah State University student-led movement Aggiethon hosted its yearly dance celebration event on Nov. 14.
Aggiethon, part of a national movement called the Miracle Network Dance Marathon, is an annual campaign that raises awareness and support throughout the year with a final dance celebration in November. This year, the Aggiethon community raised $15,177.20 for Primary Children’s Hospital.
In 2019, the final Aggiethon celebration brought in 150-200 people for a 10 hour dance marathon, but this year’s event, hosted over YouTube Live, looked pretty different due to COVID-19. Though there was some dancing, much of the event this year was spent telling the stories of the children Aggiethon is supporting.
Corbin Kasteler, Executive Director of Aggiethon 2020, said that having Aggiethon go virtual allowed for the event to reach a broader audience. This year brought a lot of support from the community and outside of Cache Valley.
Another upside of the virtual event was that it was safe for more immunocompromised children to participate. Ten families with children treated at Primary Children’s were able to join the stream, more than any event in the past.
“You see all these superhero kids just with their families, and they get to interact with each other,” Kasteler said. “It was that interaction between families that we haven’t really done in the past that this year we were really able to get a bit more.”
Moving the event to a virtual platform did come with difficulties. The first YouTube stream was actually shut down for breaking copyright due to the material from Primary Children’s being shown. The Aggiethon leadership had to quickly create a new stream, reupload the link to their website and frantically message everyone who they knew was watching. The stream did end up losing quite a few viewers.
Kasteler said that the virtual platform also made it difficult to hype participants up and gauge their reactions.
Even with these difficulties, Aggiethon 2020 successfully raised thousands of dollars, $4,500 coming from the virtual event itself.
“We still got a ton of support,” Kasteler said. “Fraternities and sororities were our number one go-to. They had little competitions to see who could raise the most money.”
Jonah Hansen, a member of USU fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon, participated in one of these competitions. In this fraternity’s traditional Aggiethon competition, five brothers raise as much money as possible, and the four who raise the least jump into a freezing lake. The top brother gets to choose someone to jump in the lake in his stead.
“You get to choose, like, a brother who didn’t raise any money or someone you don’t like too much or someone you want to see because you know it will be funny,” Hansen said. “It’s always effective. We have brothers raising close to $1,000 to do it every year.”
Kasteler’s favorite part of Aggiethon is being able to interact with the kids. He said that unlike fundraisers where you aren’t able to see where your contribution goes, Aggiethon participants get to see firsthand who this event is supporting.
“This is an event that you actually get to look at the eyes of the person that you’re benefiting,” Kasteler said. “You get to meet some of the kiddos that your money is helping to go towards, that you’re supporting.”
Registration for next year’s Aggiethon campaign will open on Jan. 1, 2021 at aggiethon.usu.edu. Virtual leadership opportunities for next year’s Aggiethon will open within the next few weeks.
Darcy Ritchie is a second-year journalism student at Utah State from Idaho Falls, Idaho. Outside of writing for the Statesman, she loves to DJ for Aggie Radio, eat french bread in the Walmart parking lot, and tweet.
—darcy.ritchie@usu.edu
@darcyrrose