Student council representative Bodhi Lim helped orchestrate an immensely successful fundraiser at Dover Bay Secondary School for the Canadian Cancer Society. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Jordan Davidson

huge success

VIDEO: Dover Bay students blow past Relay for Life fundraising goal

Jun 6, 2022 | 2:39 PM

NANAIMO —Students at Dover Bay Secondary School didn’t let a little rain delay keep them from more than doubling their fundraising goal for the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS).

Dover Bay’s student council hosted their Relay for Life event on Monday, June 6 which raised more than $38,000 before the event formally started.

Student council president Sonya Urbanowicz said their original goal was $15,000.

“Last year our goal was $10,000 and we raised $13,000. We wanted to raise our goal just a little bit to see what would happen and we ended up just absolutely crushing it.”

The original walk date of June 3, which was changed to the sixth due to poor weather.

permanent home

'We're hugely grateful:' Nanaimo Men's Shed group finds a place to call home

33m ago

Making an impact

Nanaimo woman publishes books to open awareness of neurodiverse children

12h ago

iconic voice

Legendary hockey broadcaster Bob Cole, a welcome voice for a half-century, dead at 90

19h ago

About 240 students made up the 34 teams walking around the school’s sports field.

At least one representative from each team must be walking for the entire event, which began at 9 a.m. and ends at 10 p.m.

The CCS provided some money for the event to pay for the bouncy castles and other fun activities, with the student council pitching in from their own funding.

Urbanowicz said they’ve been working hard to coordinate this event for the past several weeks.

“We’ve got a lot of positive feedback from all these students. We weren’t sure how it was going to work this year just because we hadn’t done an event this big and we weren’t sure how the turnout was going to be, but we’ve had so many people come up to us today and say they are excited and pumped.”

Teacher sponsor for student council Alita Dancy, along with fellow teacher sponsor Caitlyn Ryan, helped guide the student council through the event organizing process.

Dancy said seeing this event come to life is a really important moment for them and the students.

“The big thing for us is just the relevancy of how cancer affects so many of us, and an opportunity for students to step outside of their comfort zone, raise awareness, and raise money for a cause that is so detrimental to us as people and society.”

Dancy said she’s “unbelievably proud” of her students for their accomplishments.

“It’s still taking a second to sink in, but just looking around and seeing everyone’s smiles and happiness and the joy and the comradery going on, it’s really cool.”

Dancy said they hope to make this event an annual kick-off to the summer.

You can still donate to the Dover Bay School Relay for Life event until 10 p.m. Monday night by clicking here.

Local news. Delivered. Free. Subscribe to our daily news wrap and get our top local stories delivered to your email inbox every evening

jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow