“Cotton candy, popcorn, snow cones, inflatables, a bounce house,” Emma Caccamo ’13 listed off the events that are planned for Wesleyan’s second annual Relay for Life, which started at noon today and will end at midnight. “There will be a clown.”
Caccamo has grand ambitions for Wesleyan’s Relay for Life, an annual fundraiser for The American Cancer Society (ACS).
“It’s a Spring Fling. It’s a WesFest,” she said, describing her hope that Relay for Life will be a fixture on campus in future years. “Our goal is, come two, three years, people will know Relay for Life and be excited about it at the beginning of the year.”
If the growth of the Relay over the last year is any indication, then Relay for Life may be on its way to becoming, if not quite a Spring Fling, definitely an event worth remembering. As of last Tuesday, 340 students and University staff had already raised $39,000. This is $12,000 more than the $27,000 raised by last year’s Relay for Life event, which was Wesleyan’s first. Caccamo and her co-chair Ann Wheeler ’12 expect to raise even more money by the end of today’s event.
Students will walk in a loop around the football and baseball fields in front of Usdan for up to
welve hours today to raise money and awareness. This plan marks a few changes from last year’s relay, which was a 24-hour walk around the athletic track.
“We definitely made an effort to make it central,” Wheeler said of the change in location.
The time of the event was shortened to attract more students, like those who might not be willing to stay all Friday night. Wheeler and Caccamo, however, hope to go back to the 24-hour long relay in future years once the event becomes more established on campus.
Individual participants and teams fundraise for Relay for Life. Wheeler and Caccamo attribute this year’s fundraising success to an early effort, starting in February, to sign up as many participants as possible, as well as the dedication of some of the participants who have individually raised thousands of dollars.
Hannah Vogel ’13 is one such participant. According to the event website, Vogel has raised $4,560 for this year’s relay. Vogel, whose father died of kidney cancer, has demonstrated an immense commitment to the cause.
“[Raising this money helped me] feel like I was taking some sort of control of the situation,” Vogel said.
She will walk at the event with her group, Cancertainly Sucks, which includes her sister, Eleanor Vogel ’11, and many of their friends from Wesleyan’s Peer Grief Support Group.
“All I know is that it doesn’t involve running, because if it did, I wouldn’t be doing it,” said Vogel. “I hate running.”
Vogel’s motivations for walking in Relay for Life reveal the grim reality behind many students’ participation in today’s whimsical carnival events: many of the participants have lost friends or family to cancer.
Wheeler lost her father to a brain tumor when she was in fourth grade.
“Every day it’s new people,” Wheeler said. “I was just reading my high school bulletin, and my English teacher’s 30 year-old daughter just died. As I become more involved, I realize there’s so many people.”
According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, cancer kills over 550,000 Americans every year. Relay for Life’s Luminaria Ceremony is a time when the carnival stops and honors those who have lost their lives to cancer by lighting candles and displaying their pictures.
“It’s all about coming together and fighting against this disease,” Caccamo, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, said. “Even though it can be somber, it can also be celebratory because there are survivors. Even if you have lost someone, it’s worthwhile and valuable to celebrate their life.”
Students can register from noon to midnight today at the event for $10 and receive food, a T-shirt, and access to the relay events. Donations will be accepted at the event today and online at www.relayforlife.org/wesleyanct after the event.