RockyTHON 5K in a day exceeds expectations

Rachel Greene , Editor-in-chief

The first ever RockyTHON Spaghetti Dinner was an overwhelming success in terms of attendance and fundraising.

When the RockyTHON leadership team grappled with how to plan events during a semester of strict event rules and guidelines, events with food seemed almost impossible. After careful consideration and gaining permission from the University, the planning process began. The leadership team is made up of Advisors Nick Katz, Ashley Katz, Dawn Tonkinson as well as President Justin Brown, Vice President of Internal Libby Petersen, Vice President of External Marisa Santore and Vice President of Communications Rachel Greene. This group of individuals worked tirelessly to ensure that the event would be successful, but still did not know how it would play out until the actual event. The only indicator of the impending success of the event were the presale tickets sold by members of the leadership team, executive board and morale team. Just under 400 tickets were sold in advance of the event, producing a profit of around $2,000.

Newly appointed RockyTHON President Justin Brown said, “Going into this event, we tried to be as proactive as physically possible. We had never held a drive-thru event before and had also never worked in the Knoblauch kitchen. Usually, we are able to serve people as they come through a line and keep items such as salad dressing and cheese on the tables. This year, that would have been impossible. We had to put salad dressing and cheese into smaller cups and add them to our packaged meals which consisted of spaghetti, salad and garlic bread.”

The real struggle the event posed was knowing how much food to bring downstairs to the cars at one time, as there is no clear view of the parking lot from the second floor of Knoblauch where the kitchen is located. The event began with much uncertainty and none of the students running the food knew what to expect. The dinner rush began around 5 p.m. and the team was sending plates of spaghetti down nonstop until around 7:30 p.m. when the crowd began to slow down.

Brown said, “The event itself was a whirlwind. None of us stopped working and running around until the very end. When we finally got to calculate our profit for the day, we were all amazed to see that we had hit the goal we set for ourselves to raise $5,000 in a day. This event brought us all together and showed us that even in times of extreme adversity, we can come together to make miracles happen.”

The total raised during the entire day from the spaghetti dinner and the social media push initiated by the executive board was $5,192.50. The organization met and exceeded their goal, even when the annual $1,000 match fell through at the last minute. It is unclear what the future of events on campus will look like, but RockyTHON has evidenced that they are prepared to tackle whatever obstacles come their way to raise funds and awareness for their cause.