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Quinnipiac’s largest philanthropy event, QTHON, took place last Saturday and had its most successful outcome yet.

QTHON is a 10-hour dance marathon that raises money for the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. It was founded by the fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, in 2012 and has since grown into an annual, university wide event.

About a year ago, the Co-Executive Directors of QTHON, Nicole Bosta and Sydney Mastorides, determined that the fundraising goal for this year was going to be $323,000 by midnight on March 23, 2019.

“We knew that the goal was ambitious going in,” Bosta said. “But we have been working so hard, especially this past semester leading up, that we knew that with all of our determination and hard work and all of the dedicated participants that we had this year that we were going to get there.”

The 1,700 participants were able to exceed that goal and raise a total of $332,567.12.

The only people who were tracking the total number throughout the day were the Co-Executive Directors, the Director of Finance and the QTHON advisors.

“Nicole and I got revealed by our advisors that we reached 323 [thousand dollars] at 6:00 [p.m.], Mastorides said. “We let the whole Management Team know the number around 11:00 [p.m.], and then we revealed at 11:45 [p.m.] to the community.”

The Co-Executive Directors credit much of this year’s success to the changes made to the set up of QTHON this year. The addition of Burt Kahn Court and the location of the stage were factors in helping the event run more smoothly.

“We had a lot of new activities going on throughout the night, such as Microsoft gaming pods were there,” Mastorides said. “We actually had Burt Kahn space for the first time, so we were able to have spin classes go on through there, shoot around basketballs. There was a lot for students to engage in, which I think made the day extra special.”

The Management Team does all of the work behind the scenes with their committees, but the Co-Executive Directors say that QTHON would not be successful without the hard work of all of the participants throughout the year.

“While the Management Team is comprised of 22 of us, QTHON in general would not be successful and would not be Quinnipiac’s largest philanthropy event if it was not for all of our dedicated participants,” Bosta said.

A new Management Team will be selected soon, and they will look to raise the goal even higher for QTHON 2020.