By Lian Bunny
Contributing Writer
Want to reminisce about the cool evenings when you would go to the park and play on the playground?
The wait is over. The Teeter-Totter-A-Thon has arrived.
Today at noon, an eight-hour teeter-totter marathon, hosted by Entrepreneurial Action Us (ENACTUS), is set to start. Teams of four will be taking 15-minute turns to raise money. ENACTUS set a goal to raise $1,300, or $40 per team. All the proceeds go to the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation.
The foundation aims to identify matches for bone marrow transplants. People can register online to become donors and allow marrow resources to be readily available for those in need of transplants.
ENACTUS member, freshman marketing major Laurie Anne Wickens, is excited to be a part of planning this event and to participate.
“Who wouldn’t want to teeter-totter with a group of friends on Friday?” Wickens said. “It’s a unique way to have fun, and the money is going to a fantastic, life-savvy, cause.”
Todd Palmer, associate professor of management, is in charge of this leading the event along with the vice presidents of ENACTUS, junior accounting major Rachel Camillo and junior accounting and finance major Dean Southworth.
“We did this event about two years ago. We knew of a student who was a candidate for a bone marrow transplant,” Palmer said. “We decided to support him and others by raising funds and conducting a swab drive. So one of our student’s dad’s built this giant teeter-totter. The rest is history.”
Camillo talked about the benefits of the event.
“We were assigned to do an event for people who wanted to be involved with ENACTUS,” Camillo said. “We’ve got a good group of about 15 people who have helped us the last few weeks for this event.”
In order to raise more money for the cause, ENACTUS decided to include other activities for students to participate in.
Accompanying the teeter-tottering is a series of lawn games, including Kan Jam and ladder golf. The teams of four can pay $2 each to participate.
There are prizes for those who win these games and for the teeter-totterers who raise the most money. Along with the prizes, winners receive raffle tickets to enter a larger drawing for a few grand prizes, which include: a sports basket containing a $25 Sports Locker gift card and two tickets to the Buffalo Bills game against the New York Jets on Nov. 17 and a food basket containing a Ponderosa gift card, Tasta Pizza gift card and basket of candy.
ENACTUS will be holding a swab drive as well. Bone marrow transplants must be matched according to the possible donors DNA. By taking an extra minute to swab the inside of your mouth, you can save a life.
In the past two years, this fundraiser has found three successful matches for bone marrow transplants.
Teams can sign up for a time slot that best fits their schedule. The event will be held on the Hickey lawn.
