The Kline was filled with purple decorations on Friday, April 11 as students walked around the track watched dance and a capella performances. And, throughout the decorated event, the students helped raise $51,500 for cancer research.

The 2014 Relay for Life lasted from 6 p.m. on Friday evening until 6 a.m. Saturday morning. According to Julia Applegate ’14, Dickinson College Relay for Life event chair and president of the Colleges Against Cancer club, student donations tend to decrease each year. Last year, they raised $56,000.

“Despite the loss, I am still happy that this year’s event was able to break $50,000,” she said. “Overall, our most successful event was the 2011 event that raised $63,000.”

The top three teams were Conquer Cancer, captained by Caylin Brahaney ’15 and which raised a total of $9,674.21, Dickinson Swimming, captained by Coach Paul Richards that raised a total of $8,177 and Pi Beta Phi, captained by Kaitlin Soriano ’15 that raised a total of $3,876, according to Applegate. All donations go to the American Cancer Society, which aids programs for people affected by cancer.

Applegate said that this year’s event still exceeded the Relay committee’s goals. In addition to their $50,000 fundraising goal, the committee aimed to attract over 500 participants, have over 40 teams and to arrange entertainment to keep participants engaged for the whole night. According to Applegate, the event had 703 participants competing on 50 teams, and included performances and entertainment that kept all their committee and athletes at the event throughout the night.

To help keep the event engaging all throughout the evening, the Relay committee made some changes to the entertainment lineup for this year.

“In previous years, we had smaller activities that we never actually got around to hosting,” said Applegate. “This year we changed our schedule of events to focus more on the entertainment (like the a capella groups, the dance groups, zumba and yoga) and used smaller activities as fillers rather than including them as separately scheduled events.”

Applegate considers the event successful since they were able to achieve all of their goals.

“In the future, I hope to see the amount raised begin to increase again. I hope that the number of participants and teams either stays the same or also increases, and I hope that more people try to make it through the night,” said Applegate.

Those who participated enjoyed the updated event.

“It was great to see so many people supporting a good cause and I enjoyed participating,” said Samantha Gulick ’16, who attended Relay with the Kappa Alpha Theta team.

“It was incredible to see the student body come together for such a good cause,” said Isabel Harrison ’16, a member of the Syrens and Phoenix Relay teams. “I was impressed with the effort that the Relay planning team put into the event.”

For more information and updates on Relay for Life, you can visit their Facebook page at ‘Dickinson College Relay for Life.’