“Everyone has someone who has been effected by cancer in some way or another,” Nikita Maglis, Phi Delta Epsilon leader, said. “I could try and motivate people as much as I can but at the end of the day it depends on the member, they decide how much they want to do it. How much they can connect with that and how inspired they can be to raise money.”
Student organizations at Kent State University formed 53 teams and are inspired to fundraise for Relay For Life.
“One of our members her mom just passed away from cancer so she had a lot of people that wanted to donate for her,” PJ Kimmel, Kent Student Ambassadors leader, said. “I would say that was our inspiration, I think we all really wanted to support her and be there for her and that was a big driver for us.”
Kent Student Ambassadors raised $7,520.03 and is the top fundraiser for Relay For Life. Kimmel said he started preparing for Relay back in Dec. when he started asking members to sign up. Kimmel works at making sure everyone signs up, gets involved, and fundraises for the event.
“Then another guy who is not actually a Kent Ambassadors but is friends with one of our members donated I think like $2,000 to us,” Kimmel said. “He says he did it because Relay isn’t in his community anymore and a lot of people just donate to him since it’s not there anymore.”
The 53 out of the 59 teams came together at Kent State University were student organizations. Each organization contributed to the $65,179.34 raised for the American Cancer Society.
Maglis is the leader for Phi Delta Epsilon Medical Fraternity and Knauer is the leader for the PRSSA chapter at Kent State. Phi Delta Epsilon raised $680 while PRSSA raised $1,539.
“We [PRSSA] have always participated in relay for life because we want to get our name out there and it is also a really good way to get those donations and raise money,” Amanda Knauer said. “It is something nice for our chapter to give back, I hope we keep doing better in years to come.”
Maglis and Knauer said the main fundraising approach for PRSSA and Phi Delta Epsilon is through social media and with the family and friend donations.
“Social media makes it so easy, I had family and friends from across the country help and donate,” Knauer said. “I think it was amazing and people get really involved.”
Maglis said it is hard to fundraise outside of social media because it requires dedication and time of the members involved. He said he doesn’t see the profit outweigh the time spent doing alternative fundraising activities.
“I set the goal at $1,500, it just didn’t happen. I’m not really sure why,” Maglis said. “Last year I forget what the goal was but it was over a thousand dollars. We reached it, but then we had a couple of members reach $300 alone on their own so that alone got us close to our goal. This year no one raised that much money.”
Kent State organizations join the fight against cancer by raising money and finding their inspiration to help find a cure for cancer.
“I enjoy how almost the whole campus come together for this event, for this good cause, a lot of the Kent State organizations come together and raise money for this event and the whole idea of it is very exciting and rewarding,” Maglis said.
For more information:
https://ksurelay2015.wordpress.com
https://storify.com/lkober/relay-for-life-the-kent-state-student-team-perspec
Leisel Kober 