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Battleford’s Relay for Life forced to cancel event

May 23, 2018 | 5:00 PM

Even after an eleventh hour push to get more teams to register, organizers with the Battlefords Relay for Life have cancelled this year’s fundraising event.

“It’s very emotional for everyone on the committee to have to cancel this year’s relay,” said co-organizer Kelly Murdoch. “We have put a lot of hard work into this over the past few months but in the end the interest just wasn’t there.”

Murdoch indicated there were only four teams registered for this year’s Relay for Life which included less than 20 participants.

Fundraising specialist for the Canadian Cancer Society of Saskatchewan Kalina Barlow said she was disappointed that the Battlefords Relay for Life was forced to cancel this year’s event however she said she has seen a significant drop across the province.

“It’s not just the Battlefords that registrations for the Relay for Life are going down it’s actually the entire province,” said Barlow. “I’m not 100 per cent sure what the reasoning is but I do know that Saskatchewan has been through a lot past year, so who knows.”

This is not the first instance that the Relay for Life was cancelled in the Battlefords.

The 2016 event was cancelled due to a myriad of reasons including lack of committee members and not enough teams willing to participate.

In 2017, the Relay for Life made a successful return to the Battlefords with 15 teams entered raising $36,000. Since 2002, the event in the Battlefords has raised an estimated $1.5 million for cancer research.

“We will be refunding all money that was raised through the selling of the luminaries the past number of weeks,” Murdoch said. “And we will still go ahead with our draw with all proceeds going to the Canadian Cancer Society.”

She added the prize draw raffles for the refrigerator and the one night stay in the Gold Eagle Lodge penthouse will still be held on June 8, with all proceeds going to the Canadian Cancer Society.

 

roger.white@jpbg.ca

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