Harding\u2019s annual Relay for Life event will take place from 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5, through 5 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 6. This year\u2019s theme is \u201cstanding strong through the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relay for Life is American Cancer Society\u2019s (ACS) signature fundraising event held in every state and in over 27 countries, according to Lisa Bryant, Harding\u2019s Relay for Life faculty advisor and assistant professor of education.<\/p>\n
This year, Harding\u2019s Relay For Life committee raised the goal to $20,000, compared to last year\u2019s $15,000, which was exceeded by over $1,000. They are also implementing more focus on the cancer survivors this year, with a tent specifically for them, and providing drinks and T-shirts to wear during opening ceremonies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just another way for us to honor the survivors \u2026 just to say that \u2018we appreciate you, we love you, and we are praying for you and fighting for you too,\u2019\u201d senior Ashley Shepard, survivor\u2019s tent director, said. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool to get to support them in that aspect and to have more direct involvement with the survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shepard has been involved in Harding\u2019s Relay for Life since her freshman year when her mom was diagnosed with cancer. She has been cancer free for two years.<\/p>\n
The event will open Friday at 5 p.m. with a ceremony including a \u201cSurvivor\u2019s Lap\u201d where the survivors will walk the first lap of the night around the Front Lawn while other participants cheer them on.<\/p>\n
There are more than 27 Harding organizations involved in the event, which will each run a booth on the Front Lawn throughout the event, selling food, entertainment and other items or activities to raise money for ACS. Other entertainment will take place throughout the night, including: Harding\u2019s Good News Singers, Mighty Men Competition, tug-of-war tournament, decades costume competition and inflatable bubble balls.<\/p>\n
For many, the event represents much more than a full night of entertainment. The overnight walk is symbolic to one\u2019s journey with cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201c… It represents the process that a person goes through when they find out they have cancer,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cIt\u2019s bright, it\u2019s daylight, everything is cool during the beginning of the ceremony, but things get dark when people find out they have cancer. In the middle of the night is when it\u2019s cold and everybody is tired. They want to quit, they want to give up but they keep going because they have faith and they have people fighting for them. The morning comes, and that represents beating cancer and hope for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Summer Dunaway became involved with Relay for Life in honor of her mom and her aunt, who are both survivors of cancer, as well as one of her best friends, Kyle, who passed away in high school because of cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do different things like this in honor of Kyle,\u201d Dunaway said. \u201cOne thing his family has stressed [since his death] is they don\u2019t want his legacy to pass \u2014 they want him to be remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bryant is involved in Relay for Life because both of her grandmothers and her mother died of cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promised my [sons] that I would do everything I could to make sure that nobody else lost their Mimi when they were little,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cI\u2019m still trying to fulfill that promise a little bit at a time every day, and I\u2019ve been relaying since 2001. \u2026 It\u2019s a way for me to feel like I\u2019m doing something to fight cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harding\u2019s annual Relay for Life event will take place from 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5, through 5 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 6. This year\u2019s theme is \u201cstanding strong through the years.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15071,"featured_media":11612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[389,388],"class_list":["post-11611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-american-cancer-society","tag-relay-for-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15071"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}