By Rosie Hales, Communications Officer

After a year of extensive fundraising that included a successful 12-hour event, Queen’s Relay for Life has reached its goal of raising $50,000 for cancer research.

This year’s co-chairs Breanna Kelly and Kaitlynn Almeida could not be happier to have exceeded the $41,135 that Queen’s students raised in 2012-13.

 “What makes this such a huge milestone is that, due to limited capacity, we had a similar number of participants this year as we did last year but we were still able to improve on our fundraising so much,” says Ms. Kelly (Artsci’14). “I have never been more proud to be a member of the Queen’s community.”

Fundraising events for the past year have included Homecoming and Halloween barbeques, a Movember event, awareness events including “Ribbons for Relay” where volunteers created different ribbons to raise awareness about various forms of cancer, and finally, the actual relay that was held in March.

“My favourite fundraising event of the year was our Movember event No Mo Cancer. We painted the word ‘CANCER’ on a sheet and hung it on a wall in the Athletics and Recreation Centre for students and community members to cover up with different coloured moustaches,” says Ms. Almeida, Artsci’14. “Many individuals dedicated their moustache to a loved one who has been affected by cancer. We felt that this event really reflected the purpose of Relay for Life and was a great way to show the community that we’re in this together.”