After eight hours, and many laps of walking around the track, 20 teams who participated in Relay for Life at the Weyburn Comprehensive on Saturday raised $40,000, surpassing the original goal of $10,000 set by the WCS Student Representative Council who had organized the event.
The chairs of the Relay for Life were Morgan King and Zoe Molder. They were inspired to organize a local Relay for Life after attending a workshop on the fundraiser at the Canadian Student Leadership Conference. “We brought back the idea and pitched it to our Student Representative Council at the school, who really embraced the idea and just ran with it,” said King.
It took a lot of planning to organize the Relay for Life. In total there were 18 different teams who handled different aspects of the eight-hour event, including arranging for entertainment, games, fun activities for those on the track, and arranging for sponsorships and community support. “For the past six months we have been planning for this event,” said Molder. “We had so much community involvement. We had a lot of community teams that were registered as soon as we announced the event. It was exactly what we wanted.”
“It completely blew our expectations out of the water,” said King. “We also had great support from a lot of businesses and community organizations.”
The last time that the Weyburn Comp had hosted a Relay for Life was three years ago, and this year’s committee was able to use some of the planning materials that were created at that time. “It gave us an idea of what to do, and for our purpose their Relay event was a trial run for our event,” said Molder.
Both girls felt that the event was a lot more organized this year and they were able to fundraise a lot of money for the Canadian Cancer Society.
While the whole event was amazing, both girls were very touched during the emotional luminary ceremony. “It is such a powerful time,” said King.
Another touching moment for the committee was right after the opening ceremony, when cancer survivors walked the first lap for the Survivor Lap, and then were presented with yellow flowers as their caregivers and family members joined them. Two cancer survivors from the school, teachers Tammie Ashton-Morrison and Jackie Williams, also spoke about the importance of the Relay for Life during the opening ceremonies.
Overall, the Relay for Life was a great experience for the host SRC. They hope that it can be an event that can be held again. The girls noted that they feel it would be more successful as a biennial event than an as annual event.
