Students band together to raise money and awareness for cancer research.
Amy Szybalski
News Writer
Tie up those runners, get together a team and come out and support lifesaving cancer research, at the Lakehead University Relay For Life. “There isn’t a person who hasn’t been touched by cancer in some way or the other,” said Maggie Ryan, co-chair of the Lakehead chapter of Relay.
“Relay is about raising money for cancer research while showing support for people fighting, or lost to cancer. It is a place where we can all come together and share our stories of how cancer has effected us and stand together to show that it can be beat,” said Ali McDougall, Maggie’s co-chair.
The event will take place on February 26th, 2010 in the hangar from 7pm to 7am. It’s a 12-hour event where you can walk, run, or stroll along the track. One member of the team must be on the track at all times, the event isn’t a constant affair of walking. There are themed laps where team members dress up, there are ongoing games, videos set up in the yoga studio, and live entertainment.
Teams of ten to fifteen are encouraged to register to help raise the goal of $10,000. “The registration costs are ten dollars, and each participant should be aiming for raising about $100, that way each team can donate at least $1000,” is Maggie’s hope for the fundraising this year.
Maggie’s projections for this year would hopefully bring in their $10,000 goal: “We’re hoping for about 250 participants this year [...] In our first year we had only 150 participants and we were just shy of the $10,000 mark, so we definitely think we can pull it off.”
All money raised goes towards cancer research. The Canadian cancer society provides research funding for research in for eight different types of cancer, and the money raised at Relay goes to help that research. When asked where the money raised for relay would be going, Ryan said, “The really big [cancers] that tend to be making big breakthroughs are the ones that are getting funding.”
The planning of the event is still ongoing, and has been since September. “We’ve done a lot of fundraising, so for the fundraising aspect we’re great. LUSU has been very generous and donated a thousand dollars, which will cover pizza for the participants, and other little costs”
Right now we only have between five and ten students.
Students can register online at the Canadian cancer web site, the direct link to the registration page is: http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR?fr_id=6612&pg=entry. Donations can also be made online on the website as well.