YSU students dance to help Akron Children's
By Bob Jackson
YOUNGSTOWN
Students at Youngstown State University were dancing for dollars Saturday during the third annual Guinathon, a dance marathon to raise money for Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley.
Guinathon is a student organization at YSU that raises funds and awareness for local children. The group is partnered nationally with Children’s Miracle Network hospitals and specifically works to support ACHMV, which is the local Miracle Network hospital. The dance marathon took place in the Chestnut Room of YSU’s Kilcawley Center.
Isabel Stoeber, Guinathon executive director, said this year’s fundraising goal was $62,000, all of which will go to the ACHMV on Market Street in Boardman. Last year’s event netted $45,000, which more than doubled the $18,000 raised in the inaugural year.
Stoeber said the money is used to help families who can’t afford services at the hospital, which does not turn away families based on lack of finances.
A special-education major in her third year at YSU, Stoeber said more than 200 students signed up to participate Saturday, up from about 180 last year.
Eric Sullivan, 20, of Wellsville, a junior mechanical engineering major at YSU, said he got involved with Guinathon last year at the urging of his girlfriend, Erin Puskas.
“I saw all the good work they do at Guinathon and at Akron Children’s, and it just inspired me,” Sullivan said.
The eight-hour event featured presentations by a different “miracle family” each hour. Families who’ve used the services of Akron Children’s for their little ones took turns sharing stories about their “miracle” children and their recoveries from various illnesses.
A mother of three from Weathersfield Township, Sarah Plant, said she and her husband, Chris, ended up at Akron Children’s seven years ago when their oldest child, Rebekah, was discovered to have two large, gaping holes in her heart.
Born five weeks early, Rebekah spent only a few hours at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren before she was rushed to Akron Children’s in Boardman, where she spent 70 days being treated in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“Thanks to the wonderful care she received there, today she’s a totally normal 7-year-old girl,” Plant said of her daughter.
When she became pregnant with their second child, Plant and her husband, Chris, had tests done before the child was born to see whether the unborn child had the same heart issues and were relieved to find out that he did not.
But when Sam, now 5, was barely 2 years old, he ate “a tiny sliver of a cashew,” and the family ended up in the emergency room at Akron Children’s because of a food allergy they didn’t know he had.
And when their youngest daughter, 7-month-old Alma, was just a week old, Sarah said the baby stopped breathing and the family once again found itself in the emergency room at Akron Children’s. Fortunately, the issue was not serious, and Alma is an otherwise healthy baby.
Sarah said she appreciates the efforts of Guinathon.
“For my kids to see these college kids out here doing this, and their passion for kids like them, it’s just amazing,” she said. “These [college] kids turn into my kids’ heroes every time they see them. This is Sam’s favorite day of the year because he knows he’s going to get to see all his college friends.”
Beyond the financial aspect of the event, Sarah said there’s a human element as well that’s important for her children to see.
“It shows them some of the goodness in the world,” she said. “They get exposed to enough of the bad, and it’s important for them to see that there are good people, like these kids here putting on this event.”