Use the except from Hersheys financial statements and answer the following: Compute the total amount of cash Hershey returned to shareholders (in thousands). Do not input a dollar symbol. (Be sure to use information in the excerpt appearing below the financial statement.)

From Hersheys Annual Report

Item 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

Net Income ($ thousands)	1,177,562
Common Shares Outstanding (thousands)	149,379
Total Dividends Paid ($ thousands)	412,491
Market Price of Common Stock at year end ($)	107.18

Share repurchases. We periodically repurchase shares of Common Stock pursuant to Board-authorized programs intended to drive additional stockholder value. We used cash for total share repurchases of $247,500 during the year (in thousands).