Whey they were 12 years old, Lauren Saello and Rebecca Reeves made the trip to Penn State with Lauren’s father, United Way of Chester County CEO Chris Saello, to cheer on the student dancers at THON.

THON is Penn State’s 46-hour dance marathon run completely by students. It’s the largest student-run philanthropy in the world and raises money for the Four Diamonds Fund at the Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey. The fund pays medical bills for families with a child battling cancer.

That day, as they watched the student dancers complete the marathon, Lauren and Rebecca made a pact that they would someday dance in THON together.

Years later, the two Bishop Shanahan grads became Penn State students. After not getting picked in the lottery to dance in 2019, they decided to try one more time as seniors.

After raising almost $15,000 over the past two years, their numbers were finally drawn in their final semester of college.

Last Friday, Lauren and Rebecca took the floor at the Bryce Jordan Center with 705 other dancers to fulfill the pact they made almost a decade earlier and complete the grueling 46 hours with no sleep and no sitting. One of the two student volunteers assigned to help them get through the marathon was another Chester County native, freshman Emily Hontz from West Chester.

Lauren and Rebecca decided to dance in honor of Liam Kane, the son of Chris Saello’s college roommate, Kevin Kane of Garnet Valley, who also danced at THON in 1988. Kane lost Liam to childhood cancer in 2005 when he was five years old.

During the marathon, Lauren and Rebecca wore shirts that showcased Liam’s dinosaur artwork and said “childhood cancer should be extinct.”

Bob Brooks, a reporter from Action News, featured them on his live coverage of the event.

The Downingtown natives will both graduate in May, with Lauren earning a bachelor’s degree in Event Planning and Rebecca earning hers in Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Services.

THON 2020 raised $11,696,942.38 for the Four Diamonds Fund. That total is more than $1 million more than last year’s amount.

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