Relay for Life was held in Willett Gym on Friday, April 19 with 820 participants and 50 teams. At the event itself, $5,700 was raised. By the end of the event, $62,000 was raised to be donated to the American Cancer Society.
The American Cancer Society is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer through funds donated to cancer research, patient support and more. Teams began registering and setting up camp sites at 3:30 p.m. with opening ceremonies at 5 p.m.
While this year’s Relay for Life was originally scheduled to be located on Wheeler Lawn, the event was relocated due to inclement weather. Participants walked around Willett Gym to honor those with or who have been affected by cancer and to raise awareness of cancer as well. Additionally, due to the relocation, Relay teams were unable to cook food to sell at the event. Only packaged food was permitted, while other foods that would not be cooked at the event were placed in the hallway by the dance studio. The co-directors for this year’s Relay for Life were Whitney Beale and Annie Catron. The event featured keynote speakers Dr. James Jordan, professor of anthropology, and Lindsey Winder, team captain of the Alpha Delta Pi Relay for Life team.
In a YouTube video titled “Longwood Relay forLife Call to Action,” Jordan said, “I, myself, have been a resident of the cancer world for four years now. I don’t want you to have to be a resident of cancer world yourself. The Virginia author Tom Wolfe once said, ‘Having cancer is very much like going on a long, long voyage to a dark place, being accompanied by very strange people.’ I think that is the case. I’ve been on that voyage, and you don’t have to go, and one way you don’t have to go is to support financially and by your participation in all the aspects of Relay for Life.”
“Celebrate, remember and fight back,” Jordan
said. “Do it for Joanie. Do it for me. Do it for
yourself.”
On Winder’s donation page on the Relay for
Life website, she wrote, “I relay for my Mother,
Father and Aunt that have all lost the battle of
cancer. I love and miss them terribly and hope to
support this amazing cause to prevent people from
suffering from these devastating losses like I did,
in the future.”
Various rallies and fundraising events occurred during the spring 2013 semester to raise donations prior to Relay for Life. For one fundraising event, 52 people cut their hair for Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a charity campaign that allows people to donate their hair to create real human hair wigs for women undergoing cancer treatments. Students are able to further contribute to this year’s Relay for Life by going online to www.stylitics.com/relay and entering, “Relay for Life of Longwood University,” after registering for a virtual closet. For every student who registers, a dollar is donated. The final wrap-up for Relay for Life will be today, Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. in the Lankford Student Union Ballroom.
At this event, the final Team Captain gift will be given out as well as T-shirts to participants who raised $100. Final donations to the American Cancer Society will be collected to reach this year’sgoal at $85,000.
