KAY club board participates in Relay for Life

Relay for Life, a fundraising event and walk for cancer research took place Friday night with a team from BVNW.

Olivia Baird, Writer

 

On Friday night, KAY club board members formed a group and participated in the Relay for Life at Johnson County Community College from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. In order to participate in the walk, participants had to raise $100 to go toward research to find a cure for cancer.

Junior Amy Douglas said the BVNW team was composed of KAY club board members, but she hopes the team expands to include more BVNW students in the future.

“I hope that next year it’ll become a bigger thing; this year we were just trying things out and seeing how it would go,” Douglas said. “I know a lot of the Blue Valley schools are really into it and it’s really popular for them. We’re hoping to get something started up for Northwest.”

With the $100 entrance requirement for participants, which some students exceed significantly, Relay for Life reported the Blue Valley students close to $150,000. Douglas said the money and time given by participants impacts the cancer survivors who go to Relay for Life.

“I invited one of my family friends to go because she’s a survivor of cancer,” Douglas said.”She was delighted to know that somebody’s raising awareness and that people actually care about these survivors and that awareness is being raised.”

There are many different walks where certain groups of people get together for Relay for Life, one of which being the Luminaria Ceremony, which junior Lauren Nordell-Morris said was a highlight of the night for her.

“[The Luminaria Ceremony] was a walk where they have all the people that have lost their lives to cancer,” Nordell-Morris said. “They have candles set up for them and it was very respectful. It was nice to recognize the people who have lost their lives to cancer.”

Nordell-Morris said she thought this year’s Relay for Life was very successful and she looks forward to the future events.

“I think that Relay for Life went very well this year considering we only had nine people go,” Nordell-Morris said. “It was very successful. For future planning I think that we’re going to try to engage the whole school to make it a bigger event so we can further help cancer survivors.”