Bowers off to strong pitching start PAGE 10
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2017
VOL. 109, NO. 15 ● SINCE 1908
From miracle child to USCDM morale: Sarah Svendsen Brittany Franceschina @BRITTA_FRAN
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Victoria Richman / THE DAILY GAMECOCK
Emily Pierce/ THE DAILY GAMECOCK
The morale team encouraged participants throughout the main event.
Svendsen, former miracle child, took part in 14 hours of dancing.
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Victoria Richman / THE DAILY GAMECOCK
$ 703,289
1,500 students
raised by USCDM
partcipated
Anne Frank’s stepsister to share story Mary Ramsey @MCOLLEEN1996
Eva Schloss, who survived the Holocaust and is the stepsister of Anne Frank, will share her story with the USC community Monday morning. Schloss will promote her vision of tolerance and education for this year’s President’s Leadership Dialogue. “I have no doubt that as she recounts her journey from childhood to Auschwitz to her ongoing quest for global peace, we will fi nd ourselves celebrating her life as we re-examine our own,” USC President Harris Pastides said in a statement. Schloss and Frank knew each other as children before World War II, and Schloss worked with her stepfather, Otto Frank, to share the iconic story. But in addition to her connection to the famous diarist, her
own story offers intense details about life in Nazi camps. Schloss has a drive to never let the world forget the atrocities that left more than six million Jewish people dead, which inspires her to keep sharing her story and vision. “I get letters from people and they say very often they don’t know half of what I’m talking about, they’ve never heard about it,” she said. “Yes, they knew about camps, they knew about prejudice, but they’ve never really heard how it was day to day. The real effects. It’s very important to know the evil that has been happening.” She was connected to USC by the college of education, which works closely with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam on Holocaust education. The event is free but requires a ticket. It will start at 10 a.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts.
The largest student-run organization at USC, Dance Marathon is known for spreading its message with bright colors and loud music. But for third-year public health student Sara Svendsen, it’s a chance to reflect and share as a former miracle child who remembers a time when she was unable to dance. “I’d lost a lot of muscle mass, and pretty much all the functioning in my hands,” Svendsen said. “I couldn’t walk.” Svendsen was left in that state after spend i ng 26 day s i n t he C h ic ago Children’s Network Miracle Hospital. Less than a month before, she was a freshman in high school who left school early thinking she had the flu. When she developed joint pain and had difficulty breathing, she was placed in the pediatric intensive care unit. “They went in for the bronchoscopy and they found that my lungs were filled with 95 percent blood, which is why I couldn’t breathe,” Svendsen said. “I was basically drowning in my own blood, as gross as that sounds.” After about a week, she flatlined and then was placed in a coma for two and a half weeks. “My parents were in the hallway just watching me almost die, basically,” Svendsen said. After she woke up, she continued to recover and regain mobility through occupational and physical therapy. “I’m so lucky to have been where I was, and I’m so grateful that I was able to be in a Children’s Miracle Network hospital with the best doctors and nurses and all these opportunities,” Svendsen said. Now, she’s one of more than 150 USCDM members. Svendsen works specif ically with morale by sharing stories, fundraising money and spreading awareness for the Child Life Program at Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital. This year’s main event saw more participants register than ever before, according to Vice President of Public Relations Kaity Lynch, a third-year visual communications and marketing student. They’ve focused on branching out and reaching a greater variety of students beyond Greek life. Dance Marathon is “always trying to get new student organizations, residence halls involved and freshmen involved,” Lynch said, “people that aren’t necessarily involved in anything yet, because we want them to be able to find their home in Dance Marathon.” USCDM raised $703, 289 this year, surpassing the $527,810 it raised last year. The goal of $700,00 was set in October — $500,000 to run the Child Life Program and the rest to build a playground. The Child Life Program works toward making patients more comfortable in the hospital with things like birthday parties and flavored anesthesia. “I think it’s the coolest thing ever, honestly, because anybody can have a sick kid in their life … and even if you don’t know, no kid deserves to go through that being scared,” Svendsen said. — Contributed to by Emily Pierce
1801 GRILLE REVIEW PAGE 4
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