Every year West Morris Central and Mendham High Schools host a Relay for Life to support any cancer survivors, family members with loved ones who passed away from cancer, and anyone currently battling cancer in the local community. The Relay for Life Foundation raises money to donate to finding a cure for cancer. The event runs for 12 hours with people walking around the track the whole time and other backyard activities on the turf; it is a fun way for students to participate in service for the community, helping those all around them. . This year’s relay will be hosted at West Morris Central on May 31, 2024 from 5:00 PM until 5:00 AM.
The American Cancer Society hopes to unite communities to celebrate any cancer survivors and recognize those who lost their fight against cancer. The American Cancer Society Relay for Life has a website up for the West Morris Relay. This website displays top donors, how to sign up, how to contribute, and who to contact for more information. The website also explains the many different ways people can contribute to the relay, including connecting other social media to help raise money, a poster explaining what each amount of money people donate does, and donating a luminara.
The poster shows that $10 helps cancer patients connect to the Cancer Survivors Network, $25 helps breast cancer patients talk to survivors through the Reach to Recovery Program, $50 gets a patient a free ride to their treatment center through the Road to Recovery Program, and $65 helps get patients a free night of lodging when their treatment center is too far away from their place of residence. The luminaries are decorated bags with a light inside placed to honor anyone whose lives have been touched by cancer, including anyone who has passed, survived, or is currently battling cancer.
This year the West Morris Relay has already made over $16,000 to donate. However, the current goal is to raise about $80,000 before the Relay for Life event. The top three donors have donated north of $1,500 and they are continuing to increase their donations. The website allows everyone to click the donors’ names and allows people to see why donors joined Relay and what it means to them. Some of the top donors said they joined because they see the impact COVID-19 had at putting cancer patients at an even higher risk or because one of their loved ones was a victim or a survivor of cancer.
At Mendham High School, the supervising teachers are Ms. Mileham and Ms. Lakshmanan. Ms. Mileham originally joined Relay for Life in her high school to help cancer survivors. However, now Relay for Life has a deeper meaning to Ms. Mileham as her mom and best friend both battled cancer. This personal connection drives her to raise large funds to help support anyone who is currently battling cancer in hopes of making the quality of care better and potentially finding a cure for cancer.
This is Ms. Lakshmanan’s first year as an advisor for Relay for Life, but she plans to make a big impact. Ms. Lakshmanan has also had loved ones who were affected by cancer, driving her to raise lots of money for Relay for Life. The main role of Ms. Mileham and Ms. Lakshmanan is to supervise the club but let the student leaders handle almost everything. The teacher advisors also help out with booking venues and setting events up when the team hosts fundraisers. Ms. Mileham says the biggest struggle she has in the club is communicating with the team from Central due to everyone’s busy schedule. They mostly communicate over email or sometimes texts, but depending on the time, it is hard to get an instant response, which may delay how much work they are able to get done during the school day. Despite this challenge, Ms. Mileham and Ms. Lakshmanan appreciate working with the Central team because it helps lessen the workload for each club. Ms. Mileham also says that it is fun to have a change in location, alternating the main event between Mendham and Central every other year. This change allows for teams at both Mendham and Central to experience setting up Relay and taking on all the different responsibilities.
Relay for Life has such an impact not only for the local community but for cancer patients across America, which is why everyone should consider getting involved in some way or donating to the cause. The Relay team looks forward to hopefully seeing as many people as possible on May 31.
