'All-night party' Relay for Life raises funds for cancer research
Kimber Wenzelburger
Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: News
"Our money can go a long way," Sparks said.
Fundraising for cancer research has previously aided in "the discovery of genes in breast and colon cancer, identification of smoking as a cause of lung cancer, increased cure rates for childhood leukemia and a discovery of a type of chemotherapy for colon cancer," he said.
Relay for Life teams can sign up to participate in the event through http://events.cancer.org/razorbackrelay, and if they sign up by Saturday, they are guaranteed a T-shirt, Sparks said.
Each member of a team must pay $10 - which covers the cost of the T-shirt - and the minimum amount for a team to raise is $100, meaning if 10 people are on a team, their goal has been reached, he said.
"The best thing about Relay is that it offers community-wide support for anyone who has survived cancer, is facing it currently or lost someone to it," said sophomore Kaitlin Hart, who is on a team with seven other girls.
"You can't find that kind of support and love anywhere else," she said.
"Relay directly helps fund cancer research and honor and celebrate people who've had cancer," Fraser said. "Without raising funds for cancer research, cancer will never be beaten.
"There are so many ways to make money, and teams can have so much fun doing it," he said.
"Fundraising for Relay is the perfect reason to act silly and ridiculous. Who is not going to fund cancer research?
"The only real excuse for not getting involved, aside from a conflicting event, is apathy, and apathy concerning a disease that will affect between half and a third of all people throughout the average lifetime is a bad thing," he said.
In 2007, more than 14,000 people in Arkansas were estimated to have been diagnosed with some form of cancer, and more than 6,000 Arkansans were estimated to have died from cancer, according to the ACS Web site.
An estimated 1,500 people will die each day from cancer, the second leading cause of death in the U.S., Sparks said.
Fundraising for cancer research has previously aided in "the discovery of genes in breast and colon cancer, identification of smoking as a cause of lung cancer, increased cure rates for childhood leukemia and a discovery of a type of chemotherapy for colon cancer," he said.
Relay for Life teams can sign up to participate in the event through http://events.cancer.org/razorbackrelay, and if they sign up by Saturday, they are guaranteed a T-shirt, Sparks said.
Each member of a team must pay $10 - which covers the cost of the T-shirt - and the minimum amount for a team to raise is $100, meaning if 10 people are on a team, their goal has been reached, he said.
"The best thing about Relay is that it offers community-wide support for anyone who has survived cancer, is facing it currently or lost someone to it," said sophomore Kaitlin Hart, who is on a team with seven other girls.
"You can't find that kind of support and love anywhere else," she said.
"Relay directly helps fund cancer research and honor and celebrate people who've had cancer," Fraser said. "Without raising funds for cancer research, cancer will never be beaten.
"There are so many ways to make money, and teams can have so much fun doing it," he said.
"Fundraising for Relay is the perfect reason to act silly and ridiculous. Who is not going to fund cancer research?
"The only real excuse for not getting involved, aside from a conflicting event, is apathy, and apathy concerning a disease that will affect between half and a third of all people throughout the average lifetime is a bad thing," he said.
In 2007, more than 14,000 people in Arkansas were estimated to have been diagnosed with some form of cancer, and more than 6,000 Arkansans were estimated to have died from cancer, according to the ACS Web site.
An estimated 1,500 people will die each day from cancer, the second leading cause of death in the U.S., Sparks said.
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