Working behind the Relay For Life

Usually, when a college student has to "pull an all-nighter" for a paper, project or test, one can assume he or she has not adequately prepared or worked on the task prior to that last, frantic evening. Over the past two terms, however, I busily prepared and planned for a campus-wide night of no sleep.

Relay For Life, an all night event designed to raise money for research and awareness about cancer, is held throughout the year on campuses and in communities across the United States to benefit the American Cancer Society. Groups of people form teams to raise funds before the event and then come together for a night of walking the track, listening to bands and watching performance groups, playing games, recognizing survivors, and remembering those lost to the disease. As one of the recruiting chairs of this year's event on my own college campus, I was responsible for encouraging the formation and growth of teams by Greek organizations and other groups on campus prior to the event, as well as helping chairs in other committees with advertising, business sponsorship, and planning.

I knew raising money for cancer research and creating a night to recognize cancer victims and survivors was a cause worthy of the campus' notice and participation: I gave talks, sent emails, attended meetings, and hung posters about it for months. But sometimes when one becomes so involved in the creation of such an event, one loses touch with its significance. When I first began to work with Relay, I knew I was doing it for the above reasons. As the event drew closer, I had to focus on the more immediate tasks necessary to make the event a success.

That focus shifted again on the night of the event. The first lap of any Relay is the survivor lap. Survivors walk the track as everyone else cheers them on to honor their fight against the disease. As the survivors began their lap at our event, I got chills. These were the people for whom we held this event and for whom we raised money. I had worked to help create our Relay for several months, but some of them had fought cancer for years. While some of them had been in remission for a time, others still suffered through chemotherapy. This lap represented that they were still fighting, and, regardless of the future, at this year's Relay they were survivors. My important cause suddenly had a very human face.

In monetary terms, our Relay For Life was a great success. We exceeded our goal of raising $70,000 by over $5,000. But the event was successful in other ways as well. We brought cancer survivors from the surrounding area together to be honored and to share their experiences. We brought students from various groups and organizations, professors, advisors and community members together to share in pizza, pie contests, karaoke, and games. And we brought everyone together to continue the fight against a disease that could just as easily affect any one of our loved ones or us as it had those we cheered on in the first lap of the evening.