STATE COLLEGE - Hundreds of students participating in Penn State's annual dance marathon during the weekend raised more than $9.7 million for pediatric cancer research and care.

The Penn State Dance Marathon known as "Thon" began Friday night at the Bryce Jordan Center in State College and ended Sunday afternoon. Organizers announced the 46-hour event billed as the largest student-run philanthropy raised $9,770,332.32.Thousands of students are involved in planning, soliciting donations and helping more than 700 dancers make it through the grueling weekend. Money raised benefits pediatric cancer patients and their families at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Child cancer survivors and their families also participate.More than $13 million was raised last year, and the fundraiser notched a record $13.34 million the year before. The event has raised more than $125 million since 1977.Organizers last fall called off the last two scheduled weekends of "canning" - soliciting motorists by asking them to drop donations in large cans. They said they did it because of safety concerns following the death of a student.Organizers said more time was needed to come up with a "sustainable and robust solution" to safety concerns for students after 19-year-old sophomore Vitalya Sepot of Branford, Connecticut, died in a one-car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that injured six other students last September. Another student volunteer died in December 2011 while traveling for a canning weekend.Dance marathon public relations Director Lily Beatty acknowledged that cancellation of the canning weekends was "an unexpected change in our fundraising landscape ... which affected our yearly total." But she said participants should be proud of Thon volunteers' "dedication and continued commitment to what this organization represents for families impacted by childhood cancer."