Blue Valley high schools will join together this year on March 4 to ‘celebrate more birthdays’ and take part in the battle against cancer.
“The most important thing about the event is that we have three schools all coming together, forgetting their differences to fight cancer and make a change in the world,” Dustin Pickett, Relay Chair and Blue Valley West senior, said.
Relay for Life is an American Cancer Society (ACS) event that has been hosted many times before at Blue Valley High and Blue Valley West. This year, with the addition of Blue Valley Southwest to the district, ACS sponsor Jonnae Hill, along with others, has worked tremendously hard to combine the three schools in hosting what will be a night to remember.
“This year has needed some serious planning for things to run smoothly,” Pickett said. “I would say it’s one of the most challenging [Relays] I’ve done. It’s been hard to keep everyone on the same page and we’ve had conflicts, it’s [also] been [a challenge] to make sure everyone on both committees agree.”
Even more diligence was needed in planning this year’s much-anticipated event.
“We will need to have a lot of activities going on to keep everyone occupied throughout the night and have needed to find a lot more food for everyone,” Pickett said. “We also have decided we would have administrators from both schools to be at the event in case of some ‘shennanigans’ that could happen.”
The differences between Relays at each school won’t go unnoticed. This year, even Blue Valley High teams will be required to have on-site fundraisers—a West tradition since the beginning. However, the Luminaria ceremony will be held in the same manner as Blue Valley High has in the past, with names read allowed—which will definitely be a change for returning West relay participants.
Though distinct alterations and extra effort has been put into this Relay, the rewards will make all worthwhile. The event’s proceeds will benefit the American Cancer Society, with 80 percent of all money raised nationally going solely to cancer research.
However, it’s not all serious and bland. The night will be filled with several activities for participants.
“What I’m looking forward to the most is seeing how well the schools interact and have fun doing games and sharing to each other their stories of why they relay,” Pickett said.
Although Southwest will join Relay for the first time, many captains are already ‘pros’— returning to the event as participants from before.
“This is my third year in Relay for Life,” junior team captain Mitch Appelbaum said. “This is my first year as a team captain and I wanted to do it because it’s a great experience and I wanted to get my friends involved.”
Modifications in how the event will be run have not dampened the Relay spirit.
“I think it will be a lot bigger with three schools, but will be good chance for everyone to get together in order to support such a great cause,” Appelbaum said.