This past Friday, St. Jerome’s University hosted its annual Relay For Life in support of the Canadian Cancer Society. The twelve-hour overnight event raises funds and awareness for cancer research and ongoing efforts to support those living with cancer, and draws together all members of the St. Jerome’s University community, as well as representatives from the larger University of Waterloo and City Of Waterloo communities.

 

So proud of the @StJeromesUni students for organizing annual #RelayForLife @cancersociety Happy to support via team Katherine @sjupres And you can too at https://t.co/7bzcyyvmlU pic.twitter.com/E4aevB9euy

— Dave Jaworsky (@DaveJaworsky) March 24, 2018

 

The event is a favourite within the St. Jerome’s community, with incredible community support and solidarity arising for this issue that has in some way directly affected everyone.  This year was no different. With this year’s event, St. Jerome’s surpassed its $35,000 fundraising goal, raising just shy of $43,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society by the end of the night.

The event presents an opportunity for the community to gather and remember the lives of loved ones who have been lost to cancer, celebrate those who have won their battles with cancer, and band together in support of finding a cure.

The seriousness of the event’s purpose is never lost on all of the participants, but is well complemented by a variety of fun activities over the course of the night. These include inventive ways to raise money including offering participants the chance to pie the faces/wax the legs of the current and future residence don teams, punish the incoming Assistant Activities Coordinators, buy tickets to try to win donated raffle prizes from local businesses, and more.

 

 

Future and current female dons getting pied in the face!

A post shared by SJU Waterloo Relay For Life (@sjurelayforlife) on Mar 24, 2018 at 12:34am PDT

It is truly inspiring to see what the community that exists at St. Jerome’s is capable of achieving when everyone joins together in support of such a worthy cause. It has been mentioned countless times before, but the community that exists at St. Jerome’s is truly like no other, and is what makes St. Jerome’s the one-of-a-kind place that it is. Relay For Life is just one of countless events throughout the year where the strength and power of the community that exists at St. Jerome’s is put on full display, but even once these events are over, the community always remains.