On Saturday, March 9 at 10 p.m., Up ‘til Dawn hosted their first finale event to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The idea of the event was for students to stay up until dawn at 6 a.m. to bring light to the fact that the children and families lose so much sleep when their child is suffering from an illness. Students were asked to bring addresses of their friends and families to help donate to the hospital.
The idea of St. Jude is to make sure that no child with cancer who receives treatment at their facility has to pay. They want to relieve some stress from the families by removing the burden of the heavy costs of having a child with cancer. Students sent out 15 letters to participate in the event. If you were one of the first 35 people to get your 15 letters in, you got to use the Build-a-Bear section. Everyone who reached 15 letters got a St. Jude T-shirt and a hospital bracelet of a child the hospital has helped.
The first events of the night were karaoke, crafts, photo booth and a dodge ball tournament. Senior James Zap performed while the students wrote their letters and played dodge ball. Inflatable Twister was brought out and students fought to keep their hands on the colors. The Up ‘til Dawn group brought out Just Dance and had a tournament between the students.
By then, everyone was awaiting the mechanical bull. It had been sitting out all night and students were giddy to see how long they could stay on. People then started playing Jeopardy and wally ball in the racket ball courts.
Around 4 a.m., The Lion King was shown and everyone fought falling asleep. If students were getting bored of The Lion King an hour later, Sunday morning cartoons were on. Everyone loves a little Nickelodeon in the morning.
During the event, there were also other performances from John Farber and Tannu Singh, as well as raffle giveaways. When students entered the door, they were given a raffle ticket and were entered to win a gift cards to Buffalo Wild Wings, Five Guys, Starbucks, Target, Dunkin Donuts, Panera Bread, Milford Bowling, Olive Garden and Best Buy. They also were giving away two Razor scooters, two iPod Shuffles, an X-BOX 360, a Kindle Fire, a gift basket from the CJ department, a Rec Center training package, Duck Pin bowling, a Student Activities basket, an ORL bucket, and the most awaited prize of the night: a 40-inch television.
Just in case anyone got tired throughout the event, students were able to leave and come back or they could go in the nap room (as long as you brought your blanky!)
Overall, it was a fantastic, fun-filled night that brought in a ton of money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. To run the hospital daily it costs $1.8 million, and hopefully Up ‘til Dawn at the University of New Haven put a bit of a dent in that for one.
