Relay for Life, an event supporting the American Cancer Society, occupied the Kline Athletic Center from 6 p.m. on Friday, March 30 to 6 a.m. on Saturday, March 31. According to Eric Seymour ’12, a member of the committee that organized the event at Dickinson, this year’s Relay was “the fourth…we’ve had at Dickinson,” with “participation…increasing every year.” By the end of the event, $51,116.52 had been raised as of press time. This was slightly below the monetary goal of $60,000 established before the event. About 700 people participated on about 60 teams.

After about an hour of registration accompanied by Starbucks coffee and Rita’s Italian ice, committee members thanked everyone present for coming out in support of cancer research and advocacy. They explained that each team was to have one member walking or running on the track throughout the event, symbolizing that “cancer never sleeps” and “we’re never going to rest until we find some kind of cure for this disease.” Cancer survivors walked the first lap to thunderous applause to remind the participants of the need for a cure. For the second lap, the survivors were joined by people who had experienced supporting a cancer patient. Later in the evening, the Luminaria ceremony saw all participants walk the track and look at the bags decorated with names of survivors and victims of cancer.

Activities such as Wii Sports, basketball dunking contests and karaoke helped keep the participants amused as they walked and ran. The Octals, Syrens and D-Tones sang during the evening. Following a repeat of the dance groups flash mob, Synergy and Hypnotic gave separate performances.

Ellie Was ’14 decided to become team captain for Alpha Lambda Delta to encourage ALD members, and herself, to participate in an influential and rewarding service/awareness event” and found it easy to recruit team members. She enjoyed feeling a “sense of community as people shared their experiences with cancer,” but “would like to see more encouragement for people to stay the full twelve hours,” from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. She added, “I plan to attend Relay every year, and hopefully at least once for the full 12 hours…This experience showed me how easy it is to get a group together to raise a significant amount of money for a great cause.”

The top three fundraising teams, announced at the end of the evening, were Kappa Alpha Theta, Conquer Cancer and Delta Nu. The top three individual fundraisers were Sloane Fowkes ’13, Caylin Brahaney ’15 and William Schroeder ’12. Seymour followed this announcement by thanking everyone who made Relay for Life “a fun and exciting event for everyone” and leading the remaining participants in a final lap.