The Big Event is this weekend. THIS. WEEKEND. PEOPLE. After all of the mornings spent chalking the quad, the long nights of canning, and reaching out to everyone we know on our push days, we finally get to celebrate the miracles we have made alongside the kiddos that make everything worth it! IlliniThon 2017 is officially the largest it has ever been, so leadership has made sure that this year’s Big Event will be the biggest and baddest yet. With over 1,200 participants signe

As we all know, the biggest goal of IlliniThon is to raise money for St. John’s Children’s Hospital. But have you ever really thought about how that affects the kids there? How we impact the families? That money doesn’t just provide objects, it provides comfort. It provides a soft teddy bear for a child to squeeze during biopsy. It provides medical dolls to demonstrate procedures, so that it’s not so scary. It provides a mother with a chair that allows her to hold her baby, e

Hi IlliniThon!!! Hope y’all are well and getting PUMPED for the big event in less than a month already!!! It’s coming very fast and I know I’m really excited. AND SO ARE OUR AMAZING MIRACLE CHILDREN!!!! This week on the IlliniThon blog, I’m taking an inside look at some of the milestones our miracles have made recently, as they have all come such a long way and made so many amazing memories as we have watched them grow up thus far! The kids I decided to foc

When I first joined Illinithon I honestly did not know what to expect. I was a freshman who was a spring pledge at Chi Psi and our president at the time, Nick Havens, told me to sign up for this event that I had heard about, but didn’t actually know anything about. I signed up, but in my head I had no kind of commitment to this event. As the date approached, I debated whether or not I should attend, and mentally my answer actually veered towards no once I realized I had a che

Dear other Big 10 rival schools hosting a Dance Marathon event this April, I know under normal circumstances we would wish you the worst. We would want you to fail so it would ensure our success at Illinois in athletics and fanbase. But here I am sitting this letter, a proud Illinois student telling you I want you to succeed. I hope that you work as hard as we do to ensure the success of the big event in April, I hope you care as much about these kiddos as we do, and I hope y

All my life I’ve loved to dance. Usually I just dance for fun with my friends, family, or even by myself sometimes when I was younger (maybe I still do from time to time). It’s something that is fun, energetic, and even gives me a workout if I do it for long enough. So when I found out there was a way that I could dance and raise money for the children at St. John’s Children’s Hospital at the same time I knew it was the perfect opportunity. I love that I am able to do somethi