About 125 students from 6 different schools drove up to Heritage Hills on Friday, February 27 to take part in Midnight Madness, an activity that Young Life leaders advertise as “the best all-nighter of your life.”

 Young Life is an organization for high school students whose goal is to introduce adolescents to Christianity.

 Young Life leader Cassidy Cook made sure everyone was awake and having fun Friday night.

 “The goal was to stay up all night while having fun,” said Cook.

 Students from Susquehannock, William Penn, Dallastown, Adam’s County, Gettysburg, and Suburban all joined together and started out the night with what Young Life refers to as “club.”

 Club is hard to explain, but it usually consists of singing catchy songs, playing games that embarrass people, and then ends with a leader sharing a little about how life and relationships with God collide.

 After club was over, everyone bundled up and ran outside to partake in sitting around the fire pits, ice skating, and snow tubing.  The night was a frigid 9 degrees, but the icy conditions provided excellent for tubing conditions, so it turned out to be fun.

 After the outdoor activities, everyone came in at about 12 a.m. and watched Guardians of the Galaxy, which was accompanied by hot chocolate and popcorn.  More than a few people used the movie time to sleep and charge up for the remainder of the night.

 Then students walked up to the sports complex.  There students took part in relays, laser tag, a toilet paper war, volleyball, various sports, and eating pizza.

 Junior Tess Clancy hasn’t attended many Young Life events in the past, but she had a lot of fun Friday night.

 “My favorite part of Midnight Madness was… well I really liked the laser tag,” said Clancy.

Students were pretty excited when teams got to throw toilet paper rolls at each other in an attempt to have the least amount of paper on their side.

 Students sang, danced, played games, and laser tagged until 6:30a.m. when parents showed up to take their kids home.

Cook had a little trouble staying awake but had fun nonetheless.

 “I think people were tired,” said Cook.  “But how often do you get to stay up all night and eat pizza at four in the morning?”

 There were about 30 students who attended from Susquehannock. Leaders and older students were very happy to see so much interest in the program.

 Junior Julianne Martinez has been attending Young Life for about 2 years; she was happy to see the new students.

 “It was great to see a bunch of new freshmen at a Young Life event.  I hope they keep coming,” said Martinez.

 With the large amount of freshmen that attended midnight madness, everyone is hopeful to see more and more new students at weekly events.