Months of planning. Weeks of excitement. $50,308 raised.
A Luminaria bag. Hundreds more lined the perimeter of the circle.
When walking into Fairfield University’s Relay for Life last Friday night, the amount of work put into the event was obvious. Held in the RecPlex field house, also known as the Birkenstock Field House, as the room began to fill, the Relay committee and chairs prepared for the evening’s opening ceremony and following festivities.
But what exactly is Relay? Relay for Life is an organized, overnight community fundraising walk. People form teams and take turns walking around in a circle. Food, games and other activities are usually provided to build camaraderie.
Once the event itself arrives, the objective of the evening is for groups to walk the circle, visiting tables set up by the teams. Each team sits at their table on and off throughout the night, inviting people to stop by and donate to the cause.
Students chatted and had fun while donating to the good cause.
Every year Fairfield University hosts this event, but each year the event is slightly different than the last. Last year’s Relay for Life event did not produce the funds and turnout co-chairs Brian Alexander ‘15, Nicole Heller ‘13 and Kyle Scherer ’15 hoped for, raising only $28,000.
Event chairs (in chronological order), Nicole Heller, Kyle Scherer, and Brian Alexander
As the only returning event chair, Heller stressed that she knew Alexander and Scherer were the right people to make this year’s event better than ever, “I cannot stress enough how amazing those two are and the success of Relay was due in a huge part to them,” she said. “I am so excited that I can leave Fairfield and know that the future of Fairfield Relay for Life is going to be amazing in their hands.”
On the committee since she was a freshman, Heller explained the reason she relays is due to the loss of her father to brain cancer when she was 17. “I relay in my father’s memory so that other people don’t go through what we did. He taught me to fight for what I believe in and I believe in the hope for a cancer free world. I just felt called to help,” she said.
Scherer explained he relays because he wanted to help out for a good cause. “I had never done Relay before, but I thought that it’s a great cause and I really wanted to make a difference in people’s lives,” he said.
As for Alexander, he said he relays due to his strong feelings for the cause and the vision of the American Cancer Society as a whole. “Over the years, I have taken greater responsibility over the event, from being a team captain to team development chair, and it felt natural to take on co-chair.”
But Relay for Life does not just pertain to Fairfield University. It is a nationwide organization. In existence since the 1980’s, it all started with Tacoma based colorectal surgeon, Dr. Gordy Klatt.
Klatt wanted to enhance the income of his local American Cancer Society office, so he decided to raise money on his own for the fight against cancer by doing something he enjoyed. That happened to be running marathons.
A table that had American Cancer Society bracelets set up for sale. All sales went towards fundraising.
In May of 1985, Klatt spent 24 hours circling the track at Baker Stadium at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. He circled the track for 83 miles and throughout the night nearly 300 of his friends, family and patients donated $25 each to run or walk with him. In those 24 hours alone he raised $27,000.
Due to the events success, he thought afterwards how more people could take part. He envisioned a 24-hour team relay event that could raise more money to fight cancer. Months later, Klatt gathered 19 teams to take part in the event he called, The City of Destiny Classic 24-Hour Run Against Cancer.
He raised $33,000, and today Klatt’s vision has turned into over 5,200 Relay for Life events across the country and more than $4.5 billion in fundraising to save lives from cancer.
This year Fairfield University alone raised $50,308, which is the most money ever raised by the sector. With the evening a success, Alexander said, “Everything went incredibly well. I am actually shocked – usually you can count on at least one thing to go wrong! Teams had awesome fundraisers and participants were so active.”
Team members sat at their tables patiently awaiting donations.
Like any big event, planning took the committee months. Heller explained that they recruit in the fall and then in October they drive up to Massachusetts for an all day college relay summit. “We meet chairs from other schools and members from the American Cancer Society to get ideas for how to improve the event. We work with campus partners to plan the logistics of the event. Fred Kuo, Phil Palumbo, and Jim Fitzpatrick were a huge help in planning everything for the night including the facility, the entertainment, and the food. In January we have a committee retreat to bond as a team and start our fundraising and publicity full force,” she said.
In addition to planning the Relay event itself, the committee holds events throughout the spring, prior to the actual event. The first event they held was the kickoff party at The Levee back in January. During the event, participants were able to register for the actual relay event and learn more about Relay for Life as a whole. The co-chairs revealed this year’s 1990’s theme at the kickoff as well.
More recently, Fairfield’s Relay Committee hosted a purple beer event on April 4th at The Levee to promote the event further and provide another chance for students to register. All students interested in Relay were encouraged to attend and those (of age) drank purple beer.
The 2013 RFL committee at their Purple Beer event
The group had also been working hard throughout March and April to promote the cause by dorm storming on weeknights, visiting one building per night. The committee also tabled in Einsteins all week, prior to Friday’s event. This provided yet another opportunity to promote the event and allowed for some last minute sign ups.
On Thursday before the event, Alexander reported that they had raised $40,000, just $2,000 shy of this year’s goal. By Friday afternoon they had reached their base goal of $42,000.
Tabling at Einsteins
Upon the start of the event, teams and committee members rushed around the gym, doing some last minute preparations. The opening ceremony began promptly at 6:30, with everyone crowded at the front of the stage to listen to Alexander, Heller, and Scherer share some words about their plans for the evening. Cancer survivor Alex Boothe ‘16 also took the stage to tell his story and share his hope.
Directly following the opening ceremony, the laps began with the first lap being in honor of those who have beat the disease. Called the survivor lap, the survivors in attendance took their turn walking in the circle. All survivors wore purple shirts, as purple is the official color of the American Cancer Society.
Once the survivor lap commenced everyone joined in on the laps and the fundraising began. More people arrived by the minute and walkers took laps chatting with each other and visiting tables to donate as ‘90’s music roared through the speakers. Heller estimated there to be about 500 students in attendance, a significantly larger amount than last year.
Luminaria bags spelled out HOPE in front of the stage.
“The highlight of entertainment for me was midnight zumba! So many people participated which reenergized the room,” Heller said. Scherer admitted that he loves seeing all of his hard work come together, but his favorite was hypnotist Jim Spinnato. “Even though it took place at 3 am, we still had a lot of people at the event and everyone was practically dying of laughter!
The entertainment schedule for the first half of the night.
Alexander says he simply loves the emotion of the night. “Sometimes when you are running the event you get caught up in the logistics of it all and forget how powerfully moving it is,” he said.
Each team had its own reason for being there. Some just wanted to raise money for the good cause while others were there to raise money for loved ones who have battled or are currently battling cancer. “My dad is a survivor of cancer and I relay for him in the hope that we can have more survivors and create a world with more birthdays,” said Ashley Pelosi ’16.
A bright red balloon spells out the organizations positive message.
And not only was the night a success financially, but Heller explained things went better than she, Scherer and Alexander could have ever imagined.
“Our participant number was higher than ever and people were having so much fun,” she said. “The best part of the night was at 5:30 am when we needed $200 more to hit $50,000. We took one last lap to collect any last donations and counted in front of the 80 participants that were still there. In just that one lap we raised $500 and beat our goal. The celebration lap we took after that was so moving.”
The committee and chairs commenced with nothing but positive thoughts and gratitude towards all who participated. “I always have a great time at Relay but this year was greater than anything I had ever expected,” Alexander said.
“I could not be more proud of our committee, Fairfield, and everyone who was involved. It goes to show how a community can rally around a cause and make a difference. I will always remember the moment when we announced that we had raised $50,000 and celebrated as a group that we had broken the record. We truly did celebrate, remember, and fight back.
courtney todd 