A fifth straight Relay For Life event in Wallaceburg will not be taking place.
Canadian Cancer Society officials in Chatham-Kent confirmed with the Sydenham Current that for a variety of reasons, the decision was made to combine the Wallaceburg and Chatham events in 2015.
“During the last four years, we’ve raised close to $180,000 in Wallaceburg alone… that’s incredible,” said Cindy Vinall, manager of the Canadian Cancer Society Chatham-Kent branch. “That is helping us to provide support services to people, promoting healthy lifestyle, advocating for policies that will protect our health and we could not have done that without the support of the donors, the participants, volunteers, sponsors, everybody. We also know over the last few years, we have really struggled with volunteer recruitment and all the sponsorship and the ask’s in every Relay For Life event.”
Vinall added: “Based on these reasons we’ve made a community-driven decision to evolve Relay For Life in Wallaceburg, back with Relay For Life in Chatham. We have heard very consistently over the last few years from the teams that they want the big feel of the comradery, there is a sense of empowerment when it is such a large group, that it feels more like a movement. The feedback we’ve been getting in the smaller communities, they haven’t been getting that same sense.”
Vinall said a meeting is being held at the UAW Hall in Wallaceburg on Tuesday, Nov. 4 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., where people can ask questions about the changes and hear about some “new” and “exciting” ideas they have in store for next years combined Relay For Life event.
“We know there are people that are participating in Wallaceburg because they live and work in Wallaceburg,” Vinall said. “With any event, whether it is Canadian Cancer Society or anybody else, the bigger it is the more people want to participate. Breaking it down into the smaller communities has been wonderful in many senses, but the fact is, it’s not performing the way that it should anymore. There are so many duplication of efforts in logistics and volunteers and quite frankly it costs money to raise money.”
Vinall said combining the events creates some great opportunities.
“Combining the events is decreasing duplication, decreasing cost and we’re just a larger, more powerful group,” she said. “At every level, we want the involvement from people throughout Chatham-Kent. This is not a Chatham event, it’s a Chatham-Kent event. We want to bring a massive group of folks together.”
Vinall added: “Cancer knows no boundaries, so why should we. This is about a community as a whole coming together to fundraise for the fight against cancer. We are going to encourage at all levels, not just from Chatham, but in Wallaceburg. Our hope is that folks from Wallaceburg will join us. So it isn’t going to feel like a Chatham event. In our early years of Relay, we had other people from communities across Chatham-Kent. I don’t want people to look at it like something is being taken away, I want people to look at it as an opportunity to build something really big, to have a huge impact and to really enhance the people we live with and work with.”
Vinall said fundraising in the last 10 years has changed considerably, not just for the Canadian Cancer Society, but any charitable organization.
“The needs of our communities have evolved and peer-to-peer fundraising events like Relay For Life have become increasingly competitive,” she said. “There are multiple events happening all the time. As a result, some of our true forms of fundraising, specifically Relay For Life as it is our signature event, are no longer meeting our revenue goals and have been declining over the last few years.”
Vinall said at its peak, in Ontario alone, RelayFor Life raised $20 million, however in 2014 it declined to $14 million.
“It is still a phenomenal amount of money… however, it is important to emphasize that every fundraising dollar lost, it is significant,” she said. “To put it into perspective, a loss of $50 in donations means one less ride for a cancer patient who is trying to get to their treatment. $300 less means the cost for cancer cells needed for a research project are not covered and the loss of $1,000 results in one less whole, complete research grant. The decline is very significant.”
Vinall said “as a responsible organization” the Canadian Cancer Society is taking steps to evolve Relay For Life as their signature event.
“Keeping in mind the feedback we’ve gathered… with the team captains and the participants, with the steering committee and the volunteers, we’ve been listening and we’ve made some very exciting changes to Relay For Life and one that will significantly impact Wallaceburg,” Vinall said.
The event in Chatham will be taking place on Saturday, June 13 at Chatham-Kent Secondary School.
Vinall said another exciting change for the event will be the time, as it is shifting to run from Noon until midnight.
“We have listened and we have heard throughout Chatham-Kent very loudly… people have no problem doing 12 hours,” she said. “There are a lot of challenges presented with an overnight event. We think this will encourage more people to come out with their families.”
For more information about Relay For Life, visit their website here.
Well, I won’t be participating anymore. Sadly, as a survivor of cancer, I’ll now be putting my time and effort elsewhere. Had anywhere in CK besides Chatham been chosen, I would have continued to participate.
While it makes sense to join under one banner, I agree that the event would have more of an edge to it and gain greater and rejuvinated support if it moved around all of various communities in Chatham-Kent.