Nearly three dozen people rappelled 110 feet down the south side of Beaver Stadium on Tuesday. Some took it slow, others came down like seasoned pros. All of them did it to support fellow Centre County community members in need.
The second annual Over the Edge at Beaver Stadium welcomed 35 participants who each raised a minimum of $1,500 for the Centre County United Way. It is a key fundraising effort of the Penn State United Way Campaign, which each year contributes more than 40% of the money raised for the Centre County United Way annual campaign.
CCUW works with Over the Edge — a company that manages rappelling fundraisers for nonprofit organizations — and Penn State to organize the event.
“Layers of approval [are involved], as you can imagine,” said Ja Nae Wian, CCUW campaign and relationship manager. “Using a facility this iconic requires a lot of pre-planning and approvals and dealing with all of the risk management, but they’re amazing partners. So I think that was probably one of the biggest steps is getting that OK to do it, and then letting the community know that it’s happening because it’s a noisy time of year, football season… and then encouraging folks to meet their fundraising goal and come out here and have the courage to actually put that foot over the edge and go over the edge.”
One of those people was 104-year-old George Etzweiler. The retired Penn State professor and State College resident has become nationally known for competing in events such as the Mount Washington Road Race and the Tussey Mountainback 50-mile relay.
For 10 years, he’s been training at Ki’netik Fitness in State College with co-owners Berta DeDonato and Missy Quick. Dedonato and Etzweiler both participated in Over the Edge for the second time.
“It’s always cool. He does cool things,” DeDonato said. “At 104, how can you not love that?”
The feeling of free fall is the most exciting thing about the experience, she said.
“It’s cool to just hang out there and you have to get over a little fear of letting go at the very beginning and then after that, you got it,” DeDonato said.
For 16-year-old Max Jennings of Bellefonte, a student at Saint Joseph’s Catholic Academy, the most difficult part of Over the Edge was, well, going over the edge.
“The hardest part was getting over the edge,” Jennings said. “The fear was sitting up there on the railing having only one thing connected to you. But once I got the harness on I felt great… The view was beautiful. I love adrenaline so I had a great time doing it.”
Kyle Leff, program director for Pop 93.3 FM, took part in Over the Edge for the second time, and having experienced it once already, he was far less nervous this year.
“This year I was totally fine, more relaxed. I had Taylor Swift’s lyrics being shouted at me, so it helped calm the nerves a little bit,” Leff said. “It’s freaky getting over the edge because you’re not meant to physically be at that point where you’re weightless. But coming down, it’s like you’re kind of slowly sliding on a slide, except instead of going diagonally, you’re going straight down, and there’s nothing below you.”
The experience, he said, was made more rewarding because it raised money for the United Way.
“It’s incredibly important for me,” Leff said. “I was born and raised to raise money for charity. It’s something I deal with my parents all the time. I worked at a soup kitchen back in my town of Connecticut, where I’m from. And any chance I get to give back to the community in some fashion, whether it be through a charity like United Way or through any other ones we have in town, I always want to do whatever I can. And so to raise money for them is incredible and makes me happy to do what I can on my part.”
The money raised from Over the Edge will support the CCUW’s partner agencies in assisting local residents who struggle to make ends meet.
While about 17% of the county’s population is considered low-income, another 30% are what is known as ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
[ALICE] are the folks that are working and trying hard, but maybe aren’t quite making enough to meet basic needs,” Wian said. “They aren’t really making enough to meet basic needs, but aren’t poor enough to get federal assistance. So those are a big portion of our population that we serve here in Centre County. That’s why we’re trying to bring awareness to the need and that that is still a subset of folks out here that might be working alongside you and might be struggling that you just don’t even know.”
Wian added that the CCUW’s partner agencies provide a network that helps to address different needs an individual or family might be facing.
“So that’s our goal here today, is to raise money for those partner agencies so that they can work together to meet needs of these folks that are struggling with something, because chances are, if you’re struggling with one thing, you might be struggling with another,” Wian said. “For instance, if you’re having some issue with food insecurity, chances are, maybe you’re having some trouble with healthcare issues, or if you’re homeless, maybe you’re struggling with food insecurity.
“That’s why we believe in our model of finding partners that meet those basic building blocks of life, and we try to do the heavy lifting of fundraising, so that we can fund their programs so that they can serve those folks. They work together beautifully to try and take a holistic approach to meeting folks’ needs, so that we can get them from surviving to thriving.”
After a successful second year, Wian is hopeful Over the Edge will return again in 2025, though plans have not yet been made.
“I would love to have it come back next year,” Wian said. “I think we would all love to have it come back next year. It’s TBD, but we hope that we see you all next year.
“It’s amazing watching everybody overcome their fears for a really good cause.”
