Yarmouth Relay for Life raised over $159,000 for cancer society

The Yarmouth area’s 2009 Relay for Life was held June 19-20 at the Hebron Recreation Complex, the event raising over $159,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society, the most in the six-year history of the local event.

The previous high for the Yarmouth relay had been $152,689 in 2008.

There were 64 teams in the relay, down from 71 a year ago.

As for the weather for this year’s relay, while it rained prior to the start, the precipitation stopped just in time for one of the evening’s highlights, says relay spokesperson Brenda Burgess. “It rained kind of like from six ‘til seven and at seven o’clock, which is when we do the survivor lap, the rain stopped,” she said. “And as they were walking around, the sun came out and we did the caregiver lap in sunshine.”

Over 230 cancer survivors turned out, Burgess noting that the weather likely kept some away.

Organizers made an effort this year to bring the relay participants closer together by having “tent city” on the same field as the walking track. Previously the relay teams had set up their tents on one of the recreation complex’s other fields.

Asked about the response to the new arrangement, Burgess said, “We’ve had lots of comments, both positive and negative…We will definitely look at that again to see if there’s another compromise we can look at.”

All in all, however, Burgess said the 2009 relay was “very successful.”

The relay organizing committee met July 2 to talk about this year’s event.

Contacted the day after that meeting, Burgess said there was “lots of discussion (regarding) the feedback we’ve received from volunteers, participants and survivors; and we’re going to analyze things further in the fall to try and tweak things a little more.”

The committee likely will meet again in October, she said. “We do have some changes that will be happening on the organizing committee, as some leave and new ones join us,” she said.

The top community fundraising team for this year’s Yarmouth relay was Kath’s Cancer Crushing Crusaders, who raised $8,000 and whose captain, Kathy Collupy, was the top individual fundraiser, raising over $4,000.

Sobey’s had the top corporate fundraising team, bringing in $7,252.

Almost 2,900 luminaries were sold for this year’s Yarmouth relay.