Relay for Life beats last year’s fundraising total
The Relay For Life returned to familiar circles over the weekend at Exhibition Park and people took advantage of some decent spring weather conditions to show their support for the Canadian Cancer Society’s 27th annual fundraiser.
For 24 hours, moms, dads, sons and daughters gathered to open their hearts in a tribute to loved ones touched by the disease and they brought with them their wallets, purses and piggybanks to raise more than $325,000 for the cause.
“We’re thrilled that, we just had a really great year,” said Aimee Cassie, annual giving officer for the Canadian Cancer Society’s northern regional office.
“We are above last year. We announced $320,000 at the event last year and we were including money we knew was coming in. We will accept donations right up until August and typically we see quite a bit of money coming in after the event.”
After 25 years in a park-like setting at Masich Place Stadium, this was the second year the site of the relay was the paved parking lot in front of CN Centre and the Kin Centre.
The shock of trading soft grass and a rubberized walking track for hard concrete was made necessary by the Masich makeover to install an artificial turf field, which ruled out the possibility of hammering in spikes to anchor relay tents. The lengthy construction project meant an alternate site had to be found.
Organizers and participants welcomed the reconfiguration of the walking path back to an oval pattern, which helped bring back that sense of community that was lost somewhat on a rainy relay day last year.
“We’re so thrilled with the feedback we’re getting from participants, they really liked the adjustments we made,” said Cassie.
“Last year we kind of had an H-shaped track because we tried to keep it the same distance as Masich and this year we went back to an oval and lost the distance. People like to walk together as a community and they loved it. They got to see everybody walking and see the teams on either side of the track and we have that tent-city bond that we lacked.”
“Last year it was such a change,” Cassie added. “We had an extension and people could choose which direction to walk. This one we focused on keeping us united as a community. I felt we had that relay magic back. The weather was better this year so we definitely saw an uptick in attendance.
“It’s such a cool event,” she said. “Our participants are the heart and soul of this event. Our survivors are why we do this and our sponsors make it happen.”
For four straight years, Prince George was the leading fundraiser in Canada for the cancer relay until being dethroned last year by Terrebonne, Que.
Some of the teams started raising money as soon as last year’s relay was over and that helped pump up the grand total. Donations will continue to accumulate with some of the teams planning additional fundraising events leading up to the August deadline.
“Our teams were amazing,” said Cheryl Julien, the relay’s volunteer leadership chair. “The last time I looked the Canfor Cancer Crushers were over $19,000 and the Red Lipstick Warriors were over $17,000 for them. It was just a really good year.”
Mandy Pavlova of MP Make Up Artistry spent hours using brightlycoloured chalk spray paint to decorate the a large chunk of pavement and make the place look a bit less like a concrete jungle.
“She started painting on Tuesday and she was still painting Friday when we were doing the setup,” said Julien. “It felt to me more like the relay this year, because last year was so different. The oval was well-loved and wellreceived this year.”
Twenty walkers who paced the route signed up for the entire 24 hours but none of them quite made it to the end. One lasted until 3 a.m. Sunday after starting the relay at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Live musicians played throughout the day until midnight Sunday, when a DJ took over. Flickering lights placed in paper bags to commemorate each departed loved one formed a row that encircled the entire track, leading up to the luminary ceremony at 10 p.m. That was followed by a fireworks display by Starlight FX and music from Pink Champagne.
“It’s nice to see the live bands come in, Pink Champagne was unreal,” said Cassie.
“It’s my dream to one day get a headliner but it costs so much money to bring them in. Cool fact: All the bands that come here donate their time, we don’t pay for anything.”