PSU first Relay for Life, raising $3,500 for American Cancer Society

Makayla Marucci

She/Her

Staff Writer

4/8/23

On April 2nd, 2023, Plymouth State hosted its first Relay for Life, from 10 am until 8 pm on Mary Lyon Lawn, to raise money for the American Cancer Society by walking and donating to the organization. “My mom and my aunt both are cancer survivors and I’ve been involved with the American Cancer Society for the past 4 years. It’s something that truly affects everyone. Even if you don’t have a family member who was diagnosed with cancer, most likely you are going to know someone who is affected by cancer in some way” stated Maddy Hawkes, the youngest committee member for the Rockingham branch of Relay for Life. Her involvement with ACS was inspired by her desire to help and support her family members that were battling cancer.  

There are 1.7 million people that are diagnosed with cancer in America every year, so people from all over the state of New Hampshire came to Plymouth to participate and fundraise for the American Cancer Society. Along with the walk, there was “pie UPD” where students were given the opportunity to pie Sargeant Amanda Hutchins of the university police, and other pop-up tables organized by the Greek Life organizations on campus such as a friendship bracelet table set up by Delta Zeta, and cornhole set up by Sigma Tau Gamma and several other fun activities to draw the attention of the Plymouth community.  

The “Relay for Life” is closed out by the Luminaria ceremony, where people decorate paper bags and line them up around the gathering area, in this case, the HUB, and they light the bags up with flameless candles.

During this time, the participants gathered outside, and the treasurer from the ACS Plymouth State chapter, Kieryn Hewitt ’25, read an essay that she wrote about losing her dad to cancer at a young age. Along with Hewitt’s reading, the president of Poets and Writers, Daniel Harrison ’24, read a poem dedicated to those who lost their battle with cancer, see below. After these readings, they closed out the day with a memorial lap outside. This event and the ACS are established to bring light to the number of people that are affected by cancer and attempt to raise money to go towards doing more research to find a way to minimize the number of those that are affected.   

Thanks to the walk, ACS raised 3500 dollars to be allocated toward research, education, advocacy, and health equity initiatives. For more information or to get involved ACS meets at 7 pm on Wednesdays in the HUB Student Senate room and can be found on Instagram @acs.psu. 

Wheat Kings 
By Daniel Harrison
 
I was outside a banquet when, over the phone,  
my mom told me they think it’s the cancer that killed  
the hip frontman of Canada’s favourite band.  
 
I was sharing a blanket in Gimli with her 
as Gord Downie was playing his tearful goodbye 
in a glittering suit, on the CBC, like that late- 
 
breaking story from Wheat Kings. And Dad used to tell 
me how wheat kings are what they called grain elevators,  
as he’d point at them, standing like sentinels, long 
 
silhouettes, wooden soldiers of Highway 1.   
And each summer we took to that road in the dawn 
or the sunset – like last year, we drove through the night 
 
and awoke in a morning of loss, for a funeral 
of flowerpots hanging on basketball hoops,  
where the kids ran around while we tended the tears,  
 
that were falling for Ginny, who we lost in the spring,  
and my only goodbye was a phone call with Dad. 
It was August when the Hip played their final show,  
 
for so many million people and Gord 
sang Ahead by a Century and just for a song 
we were all underneath the same blanket of grief.  
 
And I mean this to say that I saw a whole country 
staring back from his eyes, and there’s something so raw 
about losing our heroes, who once towered tall,  
 
but now slump into prairie and sky. It was fall  
when Dad asked me to call him, and dark by the time 
I heard Mom from a country away as she spoke 
 
of her sister and cancer and all I could think 
of was Gimli and glittering suits and I mean 
this to say that these phone calls are rituals now-  
 
they remind me of Dad in the passenger seat,  
and he’s pointing at wheat kings while I’m in the back, 
watching this country consume all its prettiest things.