Bowdoin’s ninth annual Relay for Life (RFL) fundraiser netted more than $33,000 for cancer research on April 11 and 12. This is down $7,000 from the $42,000 raised last year.
Forty-one teams participated this year, ranging in size from a few people to 25 members.
At the event, participants had to have at least one member of their team walking on the track at all times for the 12-hour duration of the event.
Throughout the night, participants were entertained by a hypnotist, a zumba class, performances by Bellamafia a cappella and the Bowdoin cheerleaders, among other groups.
The event also boasted a bouncy house, henna painting, and a luminaria ceremony.
Between 350 and 400 people attended and participated in the event this year, which was held in Farley Field House. Four hundred and eight people participated last year.
RFL lasted from 6 p.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Saturday. Senior Laurel Varnell, co-chair of the RFL committee, attributed the reduction in fundraising to a few reasons.
For example, in previous years the committee would have three weeks after Spring Break to organize the event, and this year they only had two.
“This year there was also an increase of people who were trying to fundraise for various things and many of them were cancer related,” she said.
Varnell also stated that not as much fundraising was done by teams over spring break than in previous years.
When 45 students were polled, only two were not aware that RFL took place last weekend and only three of these students participated in the event.
“It’s hard that RFL is held on Friday night because a lot of students have commitments on Saturday and a lot of students don’t want to be participating in something that takes energy on a Friday night,” said Mettler Growney ’17.
Despite this, however, Varnell and her co-chair Ursula Munger ’15 believed that the event went well.
“The actual event I think was a big success,” Munger said.
Munger also said that many of the sports teams, like the men’s basketball team and the women’s rugby team had great turnout.
Varnel mentioned that the housekeeping team and the staff team really stepped up this year.
Captain of the housekeeping team Hope Marden, who is Baxter’s housekeeper, began doing RFL three years ago on her own and recently created a team made up of housekeeping staff.
Marden, co-captain Sherry Gurette and much of the housekeeping staff were able to raise the money through group efforts like bake sales and raffles.
This year the team had five members and was able to raise over $3,200 in support of Marden’s four-year-old grandson, Ethan, who was diagnosed with cancer three years ago.
“These people suffer a lot when they’re sick and for me to walk all night is nothing compared to what they go through,” said Marden.