Over $1 million has been raised to support the Canadian Cancer Society thanks to Bancroft, but the co-chair of Bancroft’s Relay for Life doesn’t want to stop there.
The theme for this year’s relay is travel and the slogan is “passport for hope.”
“Your support allows us to change the lives of people in our communities,” co-chair of the event Flo VanderMeer tells My Bancroft Now. Over $76,000 was raised during last year’s event. This year, VanderMeer says they encourage participants to stick around for the entire 12-hour event. “We do not sleep during this event because neither does cancer,” she says.
The relay will start at 7 PM on June 7th with a survivors victory lap. They will honour those who we’ve lost to cancer at dusk with the event carrying on throughout the night with food and bands playing until 7 AM Saturday morning.
The money raised goes to the Canadian Cancer Society who use the funds to help with research projects, provide treatments to patients and set-up information services and support programs. VanderMeer says the “Wheels of Hope” program also gets funding thanks to relay. That program helps cancer patients get to their appointments.
You can donate by supporting a relay team on the Relay for Life website, you can buy a luminary or purchase a 50/50 ticket, bid in the silent auction on the day of the event. If you don’t want to donate to a specific team, you can do that as well as online or in-person.
Bancroft’s Relay for Life runs from 7 PM June 7th until 7 AM the next day at Millenium Park.