More than 2,100 students raised $728,453.16 for this year’s Terp Thon, surpassing last year’s total by more than $120,000 despite falling short of their goal.

Terp Thon, now in its seventh year, is an annual 12-hour dance marathon at the University of Maryland that raises money for Children’s National Health System. The grand total was announced at the end of Saturday’s event, which ran from noon to midnight and featured performances from a cappella groups PandemoniUM and DaCadence and UnBound Dance Team.

This year, Terp Thon’s goal was to raise $800,000, which was $200,000 more than last year’s goal. All participants had to raise at least $120 through Donor Drive, which opened in June, to be allowed in.

Terp Thon raised $728,453.16 this year, more than any past year. (Graphic by Evan Berkowitz/The Diamondback)

Many of the students involved in Terp Thon said they were inspired to participate by someone they know. Senior physiology and neurobiology major Abby Barley said she originally got involved with Terp Thon through her sorority, Delta Gamma, but added that her best friend was also treated for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma by a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.

“I love the cause, I love the people, and I just wanted to get more involved and do everything I could,” said Barley, the Terp Thon internal director, who helped with booking the event, setting up decorations and making sure that all rules, laws and the fire code were adhered to.

Every year, Terp Thon participants and organizations are assigned to one of six teams — green, blue, orange, pink, yellow and purple — two weeks before the event. Each team competes in different contests, including trying to raise more money than the rest, said sophomore criminology and criminal justice major Vincent Levin, an operations committee member and logistics captain. The team who raises the most points also gets to eat dinner first.

“It’s pretty amazing how many people across campus want to put a lot of work into this,” Levin said. “A lot of committees meet outside of [weekly] meetings, so it’s amazing how much people want to put their work into it and their pocketbooks into it.”

Azita Nejaddehghan fell in love with the cause as a freshman at her first Terp Thon, she said. Now, the senior kinesiology major is the event’s external director.

“Since then, I’ve just gotten more and more involved because these kids mean so much to me,” Nejaddehghan said. “We hang out with them all the time; we go to their soccer games, basketball games. … One of them came to a Maryland basketball game.”

This year, 17 “Miracle Kids” attended the event.

Maryland is in the middle of the pack in terms of ‘thon’ fundraising. Italics indicate 2015 results. All others 2016 results. (Graphic by Evan Berkowitz/The Diamondback)

Michael Murray, a freshman enrolled in letters and sciences who is pledging Alpha Tau Omega, said he joined Terp Thon through his fraternity.

“We all reached our minimums, and a lot of us went far over,” Murray said. “People are really into it, keeping involved.”

He said he also liked the Terp Thon jail — which lets people pay $10 to throw a friend in jail and set a bail amount to fundraise their way out — and sent one of his friends there.

For freshman kinesiology major and operations committee member Elizabeth Mehalick, it was exciting to see months of effort come to fruition, she said.

“Going from the planning on a computer screen to seeing people setting up [Friday] night … everything coming into reality” was very exciting, Mehalick said.