If you were granted one wish, what would it be?

Nathan Cunningham would wish that cancer never existed. But short of that miracle, he said he would wish for a cure to the disease.

“People with cancer, sometimes people feel bad for them,” Nathan, who is a third-grader at Pleasant Valley Elementary School, said. “They can’t go outside and play, they can’t be with their family, they have to eat in the hospital, they can’t have a friend sometimes.”

It’s not hard to imagine that Nathan isn’t the only person who’d make such a request. In fact, on Friday, the Pleasant Valley Elementary gym was packed with students who had that exact same hope during the school’s fifth annual mini-THON.

This year’s theme was “Wishing on a Diamond, Wishing for a Cure.” The mini-THON is a student-led effort that required months of preparation and regular meetings.

“They (the students) have been working hard on this since the beginning of the school year,” Desiree Murray, a paraprofessional at Pleasant Valley Elementary and chair of the event, said. “We’ve been talking about (mini-THON) and what the meaning behind it is.

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“It’s really a blessing to see where they’ve come from the beginning of the year to now.”

While Pleasant Valley Elementary held its mini-THON Friday afternoon, each of the Pleasant Valley schools will host their own Mini-THONS, which are smaller versions of the dance marathon that takes place at Penn State each year. Their themes and playlists may differ, but they share the same goal: To raise money and hope for children battling cancer.

“The goal is to get those great doctors, do the research, share the research with all of the other hospitals, so no matter what they learned, all the kids across America and everywhere else will have some type of a cure, or a new medication, or some type of treatment to get them to the goal to be cancer free,” Murray said.

Students from each grade level had a hand in making Friday’s dance party what it was. Kindergarteners created colorful illustrations of dandelion flowers and first-graders completed partially written poems titled “My Diamond Wish.”

One poem, which was hung amid a mass of other student artworks, wished for “cancer to go away forever.”

Along with contributing some handiwork of their own, second- and third-graders also served as student leaders, taking to the front of the gym to lead crowds of underclassman in song and dance.

For Fiona Everett, also a third-grader, Friday’s party held some personal significance. Not too long ago it was her older brother Liam battling cancer. He is now in remission, thanks in part to a bone marrow donation from Fiona herself, who was a perfect match.

Fiona said that she wasn’t just dancing for her brother, but for all children who have cancer, “so that they can find the cure, and get the stuff that they need (to help) them.”

As of last week, the students of Pleasant Valley Elementary raised $10,862 for the Four Diamonds Fund, the charitable organization based out of Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center behind THON. The school will continue to collect donations until the end of the year.

But to Murray, the mini-THON isn’t just a fundraiser. It’s a chance for the students of Pleasant Valley to show their support for other children like them.

“We’re proud of that number, but it’s really not about that final number,” Murray said. “It’s about what goes behind it and what the kids get inside that makes that number even more special.

“Kids have to be there for one another,” she added. “Whether they’re right down the block from you, a couple of states away, they just are united by the commonality of being a kid.”