Collegiate Times

A generous donation earlier this year was enough to cover the team’s initial order of 580 shot glasses. The custom-printed liquid holders have “Virginia Tech Tequila Cancer” emblazoned across the side of the glass. Saccoccia remains optimistic that the $5 shot glass sales will prove profitable and he enjoys the opportunity to sell them for something he feels is a worthy cause.

“Cancer affects so many people in society,” Saccoccia said. “Being able to say that you worked to find a cure for that is really powerful.”

Senior civil engineering major Claire McKenzie first got involved with Relay in high school by participating on a team that commemorated her friend’s grandfather who had recently passed away from cancer.

“Before that, I really didn’t know much about Relay,” McKenzie said. “After doing it once I knew it was something I wanted to keep doing. By the time Relay came around the following year, my own grandfather had been diagnosed with lung cancer, so that gave me the push to continue to be involved.”

This push has led McKenzie to participate in heavy fundraising for Relay year after year. The past two years she has even worked as the fundraising chair for Relay. In this position, she has helped to organize larger fundraisers, as well as encouraging individual teams to carry out smaller ones such as bake sales or car washes. 

McKenzie is still a part of a fundraising team too, working with other members from Relay’s executive board. Though she does encourage fundraising events, she still states that e-mailing friends and family members is the best method. The goal is for each participant to raise $100, and McKenzie believes this is very attainable.

According to McKenzie, every e-mail sent by a Relay participant averages a donation of $24.

Each participant’s goal could be met by simply sending four or five e-mails.

As important as the fundraising aspect of Relay is, McKenzie’s motivation comes from her belief that she is helping a greater good.

“As much excitement as there is in the air at the big event on the Drillfield, at that point everyone just calms down and it becomes quiet,” McKenzie said. “To have a group of 5,000 people quiet and be surrounded by luminary candles, each of which represents someone fighting cancer or someone that we’ve lost to cancer — those are the reasons why we Relay.”

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A version of this article appeared in the Mar 30 issue of the Collegiate Times.