Four Diamonds families, Captains, and committee members packed in the White Building gym to celebrate this year’s Family Carnival. This year’s Family Carnival theme, “A Day in Paradise,” offered attendees a beachy escape from the snowy State College weather.

“My favorite part of the day is when all of the families are running in for the first time,” said Mick Gallagher, one of the Family Carnival Captains on the Special Events committee. “THON is one of the only philanthropies I’m involved in where you can actually see yourself making a difference, and when you’re watching the families run through the tunnel and seeing the reaction on their faces, you know you’re actually making a difference for them. That’s my favorite aspect of it.”

Four Diamonds family member Dava Beltz, of the Alexander Beltz family, said that the logo reveal is her favorite part of the Family Carnival. “I think it’s everybody’s favorite part. There’s so much anticipation,” she said. “We get to see what you guys and your inspiration can do, and all the work that goes into getting a theme and putting a picture with it.”

The moment finally arrived. The covering dropped to reveal the long-anticipated image of the THON 2014 logo.

“Every year the graphic design class designs a logo based off of the theme, then the Executive Committee goes through kind of like a voting process and picks a logo from there,” said Dana Giacobello, Director of Public Relations. “So the logo we picked, we thought, was the best representation of our theme, ‘Redefine the Possibilities.'”

Giacobello said that the logo speaks differently to each person who views it. “That is one of the reasons that we like it, because no one feels the same way about it,” she said. “From each of our own unique perspectives, it represents something. For example, for Dylan [Miller] it represents the families. For me, it represents the whole THON community.”

Now that the FT5K, 100 Days Til THON, and Family Carnival have all passed, the sights have been set on THON Weekend. Just 75 days until THON 2014!