Up ‘Till Dawn blacks out Cancer

Nearly everyone knows someone who has battled cancer. This week, the student-led group Up ‘Till Dawn spread all over campus increasing awareness for childhood cancer, as they raised money for the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

St. Jude’s is a unique organization, as its patients are not required to pay for the treatment that the hospital provides. Therefore, it goes without saying that keeping such an organization up and running is incredibly expensive. Currently, it costs about $1.8 million per day to operate St. Jude’s. Christian Feagans, Public Relations chair for Up ‘Till Dawn, visited the hospital this past summer. “Normally when you think of a hospital you think of drab, smelly, old people,” said Feagans. “But at St. Jude’s, it’s really awesome. It’s brightly colored [and] instead of wheelchairs they have wagons for the kids. One of the coolest things I saw there is we got to see some of the kids and talk to them. There was a little girl that had danced before she got cancer, and the people worked really hard with her to get her back to where she was in her dancing career.”

On the Mines campus, Up ‘Till Dawn hosted several events over the past week. Fundraisers included giving away free snow cones on Kafadar and selling baked goods for suggested donation. One night they hosted a Cosmic Bowling event which complemented their slogan to “Blackout Cancer.” The group also featured an information table in prominent campus areas such as Kafadar and the Student Center.

All of these events not only raised awareness for childhood cancer, but they also promoted Up ‘Till Dawn’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the letter writing event to take place at Mines on November 9, 2012. The letter writing event is a team competition where participants send pre-written letters to people they think would be interested in donating to the cause. After the event, Up ‘Till Dawn hosts a variety of activities, such as laser tag for the teams that participated. Feagans Encourages everybody to “sign up for this good cause. It’s lots of fun and we have some sweet door prizes!” Anyone interested in starting a team can fill out a signup form that can be acquired from any Up ‘Till Dawn executive member, including Feagans. Additionally, teams can register online at www.stjude.org/utd and www.stjude.org/utdreg if using a mobile device.

Here are the members of Up “Till Dawn raising awareness and spreading joy by giving a student a ride to class.