Seton Hall's eighth Annual Relay for Life had a new high in attendance.
Over $44,000 was raised at the event sponsored by Colleges Against Cancer and the American Cancer Society on April 11-12. Relay ran from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m. and had 70 teams, over 1,100 participants and four cancer survivors in attendance.
"We had a lot of variety of on- site fundraisers this year which is a big change because usually its always this team is having a bake sale and that team is having a bake sale, whereas this year one team that had a raffle, one team that had a bone marrow drive, other teams had ice cream so there was a wide variety of fundraisers," senior Bridget Brummer, the Colleges Against Cancer president, said.
Other activities included a hypnotist, caricaturist, photo booth, gaming challenges and a "cranes for cancer" challenge among many others. The traditional luminaria and remembrance ceremonies helped to drive home the purpose of the event as did the survivor speaker Sarah Kravitz and caregiver, sophomore Ashleigh Walters.
Walters spoke about being a caregiver for her grandmother before the luminaria ceremony and said she would speak again if she was ever asked to.
"I was really close to my grandmother and it gives me the privilege to talk about her," Walters said.
More and more students are affected by cancer in some way and Relay is a great way to fundraise for the American Cancer Society, but it's more about spirit and community than the amount raised, said Heath Rossner, Co-Faculty Advisor of Colleges Against Cancer and assistant director for the First Year Experience in Housing and Residence Life.
The participants were very involved despite a few technical difficulties and people were more creative with their fundraising ideas than previous years, according to Eboni Retemiah, Relay for Life co- chair.
Fundraising for this year's Relay will continue until Aug. 31.
Samantha Giedris can be reached at samantha.giedris@student.shu. edu.
