by Briella Thomas

On the night of April 16, Greensboro College students and faculty showed up for this year’s Relay for Life and joined together to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The 2025 theme, Give Cancer the Boot, inspired the GC community to give cancer a big kick.  

With the help of the campus chaplain Dr. Robert Brewer, this year’s student organizer, junior Sloanne Petersen, arranged for some amazing events including lawn and water games to win fun western and Relay for Life themed prizes, a silent auction, a raffle drawing and even a mechanical bull. Despite the continuous effort of students, Brewer held the mechanical bull record the whole evening with an extraordinary time of 45 seconds. Students also made lanterns and ribbons to honor the cancer survivors or patients they know and walked laps on back campus in remembrance of those passed. Petersen also invited this year’s speaker, Maria Hicks-Few, a breast cancer survivor, Deputy Director of the Human Rights Department for the City of Greensboro and a licensed life coach for cancer patients and survivors who spoke on her experience with cancer and the importance of seeing your doctor and taking care of yourself.  

“Even though this event can be a lot for a student to put together, it felt rewarding afterwards seeing the students and staff members come together to have such a great time fundraising,” Petersen said about her experience planning Relay for Life. “It was amazing to see my classmates getting to have fun competition for a very important cause that affects so many of us personally.” 

The impressive participation in the silent auction, in purchasing raffle tickets and in riding the mechanical bull helped Greensboro College raise over $1,000 for the American Cancer Society during the Relay for Life event. Relay for Life: Give Cancer the Boot is an event that made an impact on and brought awareness to cancer research but also brought together the Greensboro College community to fight for a bigger cause.