Penn Colleges Against Cancer, Greek community collaborate for American Cancer Society

With 89 teams and about 1,000 participants, the Penn chapter of Colleges Against Cancer surpassed its fundraising goal for the first time since 2008, raising $85,040.26 for the American Cancer Society.

CAC’s Relay for Life — held from April 5 to 6 — helped the organization break its $75,000 fundraising goal months before the end of their fiscal year in August. Last year, Relay for Life raised $55,000. The current balance is a marked increase from the $14,000 they had raised two weeks before Relay For Life. All donations go to the American Cancer Society.

This was the first year CAC had partnered with Penn’s Greek community. They also made changes to their board, giving two chairs for each position and three vice presidents in charge of a committee chair to encourage greater collaboration and efficiency.

According to CAC co-president and College senior Julie Kranseler, CAC was close to meeting their fundraising goals in the years before the 2011-2012 fiscal year, when they encountered a glitch in their online fundraising system. The system was fixed for this year’s Relay.

Greek communities on campus raised over $40,000, incorporating Relay For Life into their April 2-5 “Greek Week.” Fundraising efforts included bake sales, Phi Gamma Nu’s “Balls for Balls” meatball eating contest and an open bar at the Blarney Stone hosted by Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Zeta Tau Alpha raised $27,033 — more than any other Relay For Life Team. Since they do charity work for breast cancer awareness, they were especially driven to get donations, according to CAC co-president and Engineering senior Christine Uyemura.

“[It] really fell close to home for them,” she added.

For College sophomore and ZTA member Hannah Brown, fundraising was particularly important since her father has a stage four incurable cancer. She raised over $18,000 by sending email requests to family friends.

“[I was] shocked and touched by all of the support and I think it’s reflective of people showing all of their love for my dad,” she said.

Relay For Life allows students — including Penn fraternities and sororities — to form fundraising “teams.” Most teams raised money by sending email requests to friends and family.

“Being able to reach out to people outside of Penn who have more ability to donate larger sums of money is what makes us so successful,” Kranseler said.

“It was a great way to unite the Greek community with the larger Penn community for a great cause,” Sigma Lambda Upsilon member and Wharton senior Sasha Lagombra said.

The sorority, also known as the Senoritas Latinas Unidas sorority, felt the cause was “timely,” since cancer just became the leading cause of death among Latinos in the United States, she added.

CAC also promoted Relay For Life through their “paint the campus purple” campaign. They gave banners to all the fraternities on campus, covered the campus LOVE Statue in purple paper and put purple flags on College Green to represent expected cancer deaths this year.

Penn’s 10th annual Relay For Life began on Franklin Field Friday night at 7:30 p.m. and continued until about 5 a.m. Saturday morning.

One member of each team walked around the track the entire night, which included performances and free food. The event featured a “Luminaria” — where guest speakers discussed their experiences with cancer, and a 1 a.m. “Fight Back Ceremony” — an open forum that allowed participants to explain why they “relayed.”

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