{"id":20922,"date":"2018-06-14T00:09:47","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20922"},"modified":"2018-06-14T00:09:47","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:09:47","slug":"aurora-students-raise-thousands-in-relay-for-life-triple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-students-raise-thousands-in-relay-for-life-triple\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora students raise thousands in Relay for Life triple"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n

Like beacons through the night, the yellow shirts of survivors led the way for hundreds of students under cloudy skies on Friday morning as they walked in solidarity to make a difference.
\nAs students at ESC Renaissance prepared to set off on their 12 hour Relay for Life, they were inspired by the moving words of Manon La Brecque, a breast cancer survivor and co-founder of York Region\u2019s Dragonfly Wellness Retreat and, together, they set off to raise thousands of dollars for the Canadian Cancer Society.
\nRelay for Life is the Canadian Cancer Society\u2019s biggest annual fundraiser and while the Aurora-wide Relay may be a thing of the past, local students continue to step up to the plate to help fill the void for the charity.
\nESC Renaissance\u2019s Relay for Life was the third of three held at local high schools last week, each spearheaded by eager groups of senior students looking to have an impact on their community.
\nJoining the cause for the first time this year was Cardinal Carter Catholic High School on Thursday.
\n\u201cThis is our first year running the event, so we really didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d said Grade 12 student Matt Parkin on behalf of the committee. \u201cWe started the planning process at the end of February and there were 15 of us working together to plan the event. We started a fundraising goal of 250 participants and $2,500 and we happily exceeded that at $2,700 and over 275 participants\u2026on the field.\u201d
\nThe Cardinal Carter community decided to throw their energy into Relay after fellow Grade 12 student Alex, an area fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society, made the pitch to his peers.
\n\u201cI approached our Student Council and our Athletic Council, we went to the admin and got it running and thought, every other school is doing it, so why shouldn\u2019t we? We said [to students], \u2018Hey, we want to make a difference in the school community and, if we put in the work, the results will come,\u2019 and we were able to pull it off.\u201d
\nParticipating students kept busy during the 12 hour fundraiser holding Zumba classes, yoga sessions and impromptu soccer games, along with face painting, lip synch battles, and more.
\nAt the end of the day, however, it was all about the cause and for the Grade 12s to leave a legacy at Carter.
\n\u201cI am hoping this will be the first of many years to come,\u201d said Matt. \u201cHonestly, if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. For myself, a couple of weeks ago, we only had 25 people registered and then we had 250 people \u2013 just to a school-wide event put on by the 10 or 15 of us.\u201d
\nThursday was also a moving morning for Susan Cadorette.
\nWhen Aurora High School last held its own Relay for Life in 2016, Ms. Cadorette had the honour of leading the way as part of the survivor\u2019s lap. At the time, she had recently returned to Aurora High School after successfully battling breast cancer.
\nThis time, fully back in action at AHS, she was proud to take on the role of staff advisor to the students\u2019 organizing committee.
\n\u201cThey have been phenomenal organizers, you guys have just been unbelievable,\u201d Ms. Cadorette told committee member Lindsay MacPherson, wiping away a tear.
\nLindsay told The Auroran they had been working on their Relay since November and, after a two year hiatus, they were \u201creally excited\u201d to get back into gear.
\n\u201cSeeing it all come together is awesome,\u201d said Lindsay. \u201cI want students to realise how important an experience Relay is, the message behind it, and to also have fun. I want them to get into the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like beacons through the night, the yellow shirts of survivors led the way for hundreds of students under cloudy skies on Friday morning as they walked in solidarity to make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/2018-06-14-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5rs","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 00:37:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}