Runners will light up the night to help find a cure to cancer Wednesday night.
On Wednesday at 8:30 p.m., Relay for Life of Ohio University will be holding a Glow in the Dark 5k race. The race will begin at the corner of Rufus Street and South Green Drive, and registration will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Pre-registration will be $15, and the race will be $20 the day of the event. The first 25 people to register will receive a 2016 Relay For Life OU t-shirt. The first 50 runners will also receive a glow stick, bracelet and necklace.
Runners can pre-register online on Relay For Life OU’s blog. Members of Relay For Life OU also have been tabling at the top of Baker University Center, offering pre-registration to save $5.
The glow run is a fun beginning of the year event to get the campus on board with the fight against cancer and get the new planning committee excited, Chad Garnder, the Relay for Life community manager for the American Cancer Society, said.
Relay For Life OU’s goal for the year is to raise $25,000 for the American Cancer Society. Nearly all the money raised goes straight to the fight against cancer, Lyndsey Maruna, one of the three presidents of Relay for Life OU, said.
The American Cancer Society is a non-profit dedicated to ending the fight against all types of cancer.
“In November we try to get the campus aware with the Great American Smokeout,” Garnder said.
The Great American Smokeout is an event that encourages participants to quit smoking for one day to bring awareness to lung cancer.
Throughout the fall, the committee raises money by making grilled cheese sandwiches on Court Street, and by selling hot chocolate and apple cider.
“Relay for Life is our main event, and teams fundraise all year for this big event,” Maruna, a junior studying environmental biology, said. “It’s like a big party celebrating how much we have already raised, it’s like the cherry on top.”
This will be Relay For Life OU’s fifth annual Glow in the Dark 5k.
“We go out towards The Ridges, then come towards where we started and then a little further on the bike path,” Gardner said.
The Glow in the Dark 5k will mostly be ran on the bike path.
“We’ll have glow markers along the path and people with signs encouraging them as they run,” Maruna said.
Gardner hopes the race will be bigger this year, because Relay for Life OU has had extra time to promote the event, and they have already received pre-registration forms.
“I know that the three presidents are excited for the committee we’ve built so far and everybody’s who’s shown interest in us,” Maruna said. “We’d like all the help we can get.”
