For the past few years, when the top fundraising general organizations for THON are announced, no one is surprised when the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences comes up as one of the top performers. The “college,” which is actually Earth and Mineral Sciences’ undergraduate student council’s THON effort, consists of about 75 members, up from a mere 10 when they began participating in THON in 2003.

When it comes to fundraising, EMS THON has made a name for itself with numerous alternative fundraisers, like selling pizza in the college’s Deike Building between classes to starting the now THON-wide “No Hair, Don’t Care” fundraiser. Between the big ones and a ton of smaller, more independent events, alternative fundraisers make up a huge portion of the final total.

“We like to do things that aren’t just fundraising, but can help build a family atmosphere. For example, we’ll plan a benefit dinner and all go together,” said Carly Hinton, Executive Director of EMS THON. “Another big thing we encourage members to do is run their own alternative fundraisers. We usually have a competition starting in the fall and there are different categories, so whoever raises the most, or has the most people participate, wins a prize.”

Hinton said that they average about one alternative fundraiser per week, and upwards of two or three a week in the month leading up to THON. She also said that being backed by their academic college helps a lot, as they can receive funding for some of their events and won’t have to pay out of pocket. The connection also allows them access to the college’s e-mail lists, enabling them to be able to send out a mass amount of THONvelopes.

“We’re really lucky because we’re part of the college community as a whole, so we’re able to tap into the faculty and staff,” she said. “We’ve really been focusing on that the past few years. A lot of people in the college didn’t even know we had our own THON organizations and we really changed that, so now we send THONvelopes to every faculty, staff member, and graduate student in the college so they all know we exist. We’ve been getting a lot of donations and recognition and support from them.”

In the end, however, Carly said that the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences THON is just like any other organization, looking to help provide financial support for the Four Diamonds Fund, and emotional support for each of the organization’s three THON families. She said that, though each of the three are in different places in their battles with cancer, they are able to help each one in their own way.

“We do everything we can do for our families, and we have an incredible bond with all three of our families,” she said. “They’re part of our EMS family, we just refer to it as the EMS family and it’s been an honor to be able to help them.”