Saturday, June 1st, was the 3rd Annual Relay For Life of Brewster.

This year, we had seven different clubs participate in the event. The clubs’ activities were very popular and everyone wanted to play. Planning for the Relay for Life wasn’t done in one day. Throughout the year, starting on the first day of school, I was passing around the word that Relay for Life needed to be bigger and louder this year. Many students would come up to me and ask, “How do I get involved?” Or telling me that, “My club wants to be a part of Relay for Life. How do we do it?” During the school hours, clubs hosted bake sales, carried around bottles for change and many other fundraisers for Relay For Life (cancer research) before the event started.

At Relay, students would pay to throw water balloons and pies at one another. There were students walking around covered in shaving cream or drenched from the “pies” and water balloons. They were all smiling and raising money for such a worthy cause. There were noisy lip-syncing contests with songs from the past – contests held to real throw-backs. Students were drawing tattoos and face painting one another. Cancer ribbons were seen pinned on clothes and backpacks and “tattooed” on skin. At one point, someone was seen walking around with Elmo painted on her eyebrow.  Other students were helping out by barbecuing good food and grilling hot dogs and hamburgers – which were very tempting and made the place smell so good.

The night itself was a great success and put the community on the path to our goal of raising $100,000. Our total sum raised has not yet been tallied, but in my estimation, we may have come very close to our goal. Relay For Life was a wonderful experience and a great boost for raising cancer awareness and funds. Without the help of the BHS students who participated, we wouldn’t have been able to host such a wonderful night remembering and honoring those we have lost to cancer from the Brewster community.