Relay For Life Participants Raise $88,000 for Cancer

Harvard students often claim to be world-class. As of Friday night, 404 students from Harvard and four nearby schools can officially claim to be world record breakers.

At the Relay for Life event, held at Harvard’s Gordon Indoor Track this past weekend to raise money for the American Cancer Society, participants broke the world record for most simultaneous fist bumps.

On the count of three, 202 pairs of students pushed their raised fists together, surpassing the 250 participants needed to set a new fist bump record.

Harvard’s Relay for Life Co-Director Christopher Ding ’12 said the record attempt was inspired by a Crimson video of Laura E. D’Asaro ’13, who broke the world record for fastest one-mile crawl at a Relay for Life event in Seattle two years ago.

“We really want this girl on our board,” Ding said after seeing the video.

D’Asaro eagerly signed on, and the board selected simultaneous fist bumping as their record to break.

“We wanted something positive, because Relay for Life is all about hope and celebration. Fist bumps are all about these themes,” D’Asaro said.

Additionally, only 250 people were needed to break the record, meaning that it was a feasible target for the Relay for Life participants.

“My mom told me I would never amount to anything, and today I’m getting my name in the history books,” said J. Michael Beckham ’12 just before his fist bump.

The all-night Relay for Life event, held from 6 p.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Saturday, featured a variety of other light-hearted moments—such as a rowdy game of Capture the Flag and a drag “Miss Relay” pageant—but included solemn moments as well to address the fight against cancer.

The luminaria ceremony, which many participants said was their favorite part of the night, began with three speakers who recounted their personal experiences with cancer, continuing with a silent glowstick-lit lap around the track.

“Cancer is having a little brother who can’t play with me, a mother that breaks into tears with every piece of news, a father who’s so worried that he doesn’t know I exist,” said Wellesley student Jess Haladyna.

“I’m pretty sure he has no idea about the countless nights I’ve cried myself to sleep,” Wellesley student Lisa Koplik said about her father, who is currently battling cancer. “I don’t think he knows how terrified I am that he won’t meet my children or come to my wedding or be around as I get older and need his help.”

Later in the night, Wellesley, Mass. resident Laura Witheford discussed her mother’s recurring cancers, the three children she is raising whose mother died of cancer, and her own fight against breast cancer.

“There are still too many stories that do not have a happy ending, as my own children know all too well,” she said. “I am a mother with cancer, raised by a mother with cancer. May my children live in a world where that chain is finally broken.”

Relay for Life is a national program held at sites around the world. Participants in the Relay held at Harvard this weekend raised about $88,000 for the American Cancer Society through donations prior to the event and fundraisers held during the night.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.