THON may not be until February, but many organizations are getting a head start on fundraising now. Penn State students and alumni alike raised over $700,000 over the span of two weeks during this year's Dream Forward Campaign. One of the many student-run organizations is Kaizen, a THON org comprised mainly of Army ROTC cadets. I myself am part of this organization and am on the staff this year. It is truly an honor and a privilege, and I greatly enjoy taking part alongside the people in my organization. I am so happy that I'm a lot more involved this year.

This weekend, we are hosting our 3rd annual Ruck For A Cure Benefitting THON. For those who don't know, "rucking" is essentially walking with a backpack on (think of it as hiking, but for a great cause!). We will have rucks present if participants would like to use those instead of their own bags. The event will take place outside of Beaver Stadium at the intersection of Curtin and University on campus. In order to participate, we ask for a $5 donation. We are also incorporating pledging donations for each mile rucked. For example, if I pledged $5 for every lap I completed around the stadium and completed 4 laps total, my donation would amount to $20. Every donation counts and helps raise funds for pediatric cancer research as well as any families impacted.

We look forward to this event each year because it helps raise awareness not only for THON in general but for our organization as well. We have loads of fun with it. We also love getting to see our THON family, they are truly a joy to be around. Stop by our event to get the chance to meet them as well! The more people rucking, the merrier! We will be starting at 10 A.M. on November 9 and ending at 10 A.M. on November 10. That's right, this is a 24-hour rucking marathon! Grab some friends, grab a backpack, and take a few laps around everyone's favorite football stadium.

Last year, over the span of 24 hours, we rucked a total of 1,207 miles. Our success with the number of miles rucked inspired our pledging goal this year. We can raise a great deal of money to aid cancer research and patients from this event alone. Please help us in our efforts. Even if you can't physically make it to the event, consider taking the time to support our organization by visiting our DonorDrive page and donating here: https://donate.thon.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=1775.

Join Kaizen as we ruck this weekend FTK! We hope to see you there!