Updated: Dec. 7, 2015 at 12:30 p.m.

Kim Pitt walked out on stage with her 13-year-old daughter, Victoria, and began to cry. Overwhelmed with emotion, she struggled to hold back tears as her daughter hugged her tighter.

“[Victoria] is my hero, like you are my hero in raising money for Golisano,” Pitt said to the audience.

Victoria has severe Crohn’s disease and the money raised at this year’s OttoTHON will benefit Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital, where she receives treatment.

Masses of students dressed in fluffy tutus, silver sparkles and sneakers danced their way into the Schine Student Center at Syracuse University Saturday morning. Adrenaline pumping, these students had one goal: to raise money for the hospital through SU’s largest student philanthropy event, OttoTHON.

This year, OttoTHON raised $152,777.40, which exceeded its $100,000 goal. The total is a combination of last February’s event and Saturday’s event, organizers said.

The OttoTHON dance marathon, which lasted from noon until midnight, works in conjunction with the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, a nationwide non-profit. Last February, the event raised over $84,000, beating the northeast record for the most money raised by a CMN dance marathon’s first event.

The money raised at OttoTHON will be used to move the pediatric emergency room to a higher floor in order to make it bigger and better, said Upstate Golisano CEO John McCabe. He then donated $440 to the efforts to a loud cheer.

At the start of the day, hundreds of students, all wearing yellow OttoTHON T-shirts, cheered their way past the Orange Appeal a cappella group into Goldstein Auditorium, where Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” was blasting through the speakers. Fairy lights rimmed the balcony and balloons covered the walls and scattered across the dance floor.

Close to 450 students had registered to fundraise, Max Murphy, a sophomore English education major and a volunteer for OttoTHON, said.

Jillian Lynch created OttoTHON last fall. After she gave her opening remarks, Lynch, a junior dual broadcast and digital journalism and citizenship and civic engagement major, introduced Chris Hixon, the Miracle Dance Marathon manager for the northeast, and Thomas Welch, the chair of pediatrics at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.

“Remember that you are the reason that some kids will see one more day,” Hixon said before pumping up the crowd.

This year, OttoTHON’s theme was superheroes. Posters printed with “You are our hero,” and “Dance for a day, give hope for a lifetime,” plastered the walls.

At around 1:40 p.m., children from the hospital began arriving and immediately jumped into the action, tossing volleyballs and hula-hooping around the venue.

At the back of the auditorium was a special area reserved for the families of the children. Dubbed “Superhero HQ,” it included a station where the kids could paint their own superhero masks and bright red capes for each child to wear.

This area was designed so the kids could have somewhere to sit while still participating and watching the dancers, junior advertising major and OttoTHON volunteer Stephanie Malis said.

The largest activity of the night was the hourly “morale dance.” This elaborate routine, taught to dancers by energetic morale director Nikki Cullinan, required every student in attendance to do grapevines, knee slaps and other dance moves. The synchronized dance kept people moving and was set to a mashup of songs and song bites.

“I’m up there sweating and going all out, and you just can’t care what anyone else thinks. It’s so much fun,” Cullinan, an undeclared sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said.

The majority of the 12 hours was dedicated to an open dance floor, while OttoTHON volunteers danced along on stage. The time was broken up by games, fundraising opportunities, speeches and a surprise dance workshop from the Raices Dance Troupe.

Many children from the hospital came to speak on stage, including Nick Ammann, a high school senior who had two brain surgeries in the past year.

In order to bring more money to Upstate Golisano, dancers were asked to raise an additional $44 throughout the day. Every time a student did, buzzers would sound across the entire auditorium and draw loud cheers from the dancers.

Rob Long, an SU alumnus and former punter for the football team, came to speak about his experience being treated for brain cancer at the hospital nearly five years ago.

“You guys are in such an amazing position to make such a big difference,” Long said. “It’s been a long road, but we have so much hope.”

By the end of the night, the dancers were tired and their moves turned strangely interpretive, swaying to the rhythm as they acted out song lyrics. Still, they danced on, until Lynch walked on stage to give one last speech.

“Wow, we did it!” Lynch said as the room burst into applause. “Honestly, all of you are dance marathon. You are the reason this is happening; without you, none of this would have happened.”

Although not every dancer lasted the full 12 hours, those who did got a second wind, exploding into cheers and hollers when event organizers revealed OttoTHON raised about $68,000 at this fall’s marathon.

As she left the auditorium with her mother, Victoria Pitt shouted out, “Best party ever!”

Correction: In a previous version of this article, the amount of money raised at the second OttoTHON was misstated. Saturday’s event raised just over $68,000, which was combined with last February’s fundraising total to raise over $150,000 for charity over the course of the two dance marathons. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on December 6, 2015 at 9:11 pm

Contact: emmichae@syr.edu