From 6 pm on Friday March 24, 2017 to 6 am on Saturday March 25, 2017, I participated in Creighton’s Relay for life.
If you never been to a Relay for Life event or don’t know what it’s about, it’s essentially a fundraiser for Cancer research through the American Cancer Society with the foundation on walking/running “for a cure”. You have a team that makes a promise to keep moving on the track for the the duration of the fundraiser as a representation that cancer doesn’t sleep. Throughout the event other than the walk/run itself, there are many activities and merchandise to purchase in order to gather more donations for the cause.
Here’s my rundown of my personal 12 hour celebration:
The beginning of the program, I was a bit groggy as the weather outside was gloomy and rainy, which did nothing to garner any sense of enthusiasm. I was also just tired from a long week of school and I didn’t take a nap to prepare me for the night.
Once arriving to the school’s fitness center, the location of the relay, I and my residence hall team set up our “campsite” with our blankets, pillows, and backpacks.
The open ceremony consisted of us acknowledging survivors having them take the first lap as we cheered them on; this was the beginning of my energy raising up.
After the entire program took a lap together, everyone was left to their own agendas whether playing gym games like volleyball and basketball, checking out merchandise and the raffle, taking pictures, talking to friends, or being studious and doing homework.
At one point after a snack of chips and salsa, I was put into “jail”; which is another fundraising effort of our relay where friends could pay a dollar for their friends to stay in “jail”, a corner of the gym, for 10 minutes and one could only get out if they stayed their time or get bailed for $3.
I took my own personal walking/running shift from 9-10pm. My team used a present bow as our baton as the theme for our school’s relay was “Celebrate More Birthdays”. It was amazing to witness the sense of community created with everyone having such a fun time to help such a big cause. It’s crazy how cancer has somehow has affected each person whether immediate family or just someone you know.
After my shift, we had the Luminaria Ceremony. This is where we lit paper bags with glow sticks to honor those who have been personally affected by cancer. We had the lights off and all walked the track in remembrance.
Following we had a student speaker along her sister give a personal account on how cancer affected their family. It made cancer more hearing their story.
With the change of tone, we transitioned to a midnight snack of pizza and activities resumed with occasional big group events like earlier there was a scavenger hunt and later tug of war. Mostly, I just walked around and talked with friends goofing around.
At 2 am, a Minneapolis based band called “Whosah” graced the stage and everyone was pumped. It was like being at a concert/rager. Somehow we had so much energy dancing, jumping and singing along to classic songs like “Stacy’s Mom” and “All Star”. They played original music which we jammed too as well and we had a sing-off to “My Girl”. They ended on a high note with “Shut Up and Dance”.
The program tried to keep everyone up and moving to stay awake with group dance and fitness classes but there were people sleeping at their respective campsites.
At 5:30 am, our closing ceremony began. They announced with all the initial team creation donations and the donations throughout the night, Creighton earned over $46,000 for Cancer Research.
Going to sleep at 6 am Saturday morning and knowing what we accomplished with the fun we had me sleeping with a smile.
