Relay For Life, Helping for the Cause

On April 15, 2011 Frostburg State University held an event called Relay for Life where faculty, staff and students all gathered at the Bob Cat Stadium to walk for cancer. Before the relay officially began, people who were survivors of cancer took the first walk around the track. As these survivors began to walk, the crowd cheered them on and applauded these them. The whole aspect of this event was very touching. There were plenty participants there that were impacted by this disease whether it was personal or just having the urge to support a friend.


Also plenty activities there for people to get involved in, whether it was a hula hoop contest, the four square game or the Velcro wall or race. A number of organizations surrounded the track holding these games for free or at a certain cost taking donations for this special event.

One that caught everyone’s attention the most was the Ms. Relay, where a number of eight males dressed as females raising money for cancer. Each had an objective to why they were running for Ms. Relay most had parents or grandparents who has a type of cancer or has sadly passed away from this disease. With the dedication of these eight males, despite the cold, windy weather they all gathered together raising about 900 dollars. It was a great experience to have seen people from different backgrounds come together for this event and have one goal in common and that was to help others in need.

RaSean Booker from Germany is a Junior here at Frostburg State University majoring in Business Administration with a focus in Financing has been a participant at Relay for Life for a year and a half now. She loves how “people interact with others and giving back.” She also stated that she is walking for her mother and grandfather who are survivors of cancer.

Dominic McAilly also a Junior majoring in Political Science from Baltimore, Maryland has attended Relay for Life for three years. He enjoys the experience so far, he gave positive and negative feedback on the whole aspect. His favorite part is the lighting of the luminary that spells out “Hope.” A negative aspect that he shared was the weather saying that it was too cold. McAilly’s learning experience from this relay over the last three years was that “during this event it brings unity to this campus and everyone comes together without alcohol being involved and having a good time.”

Devin James from Baltimore, Maryland as well is a Senior majoring in English has been to Relay for Life for three years. He says that it’s a social academic event “social because you mingle and mix with people outside the norm of friends and academic because you learn statistics affected and infected.” He also mentions that community events such as this “make cancer prevalent and us as students don’t think we can be affected.”