MORE walkers marked another successful Relay for Life in Swan Hill.
About 480
participants — a huge increase on last year’s turnout — were rosy cheeked and
nursing weary legs early this week after the 24-hour continuous team relay
finished up on Saturday afternoon.
About $40,000 was raised for the Cancer
Council’s research and education activities.
Cancer Council community
engagement officer Jamie-Lea Jones said the event was a success with more
sponsorship money still to arrive.
“It was definitely up on last year,” she
said.
“The atmosphere, with 10 extra teams [compared to last year] was great,
the weather was lovely and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.”
With
temperatures soaring above 30C on Saturday, a visit from the CFA was an
unexpected but welcome relief, she said.
“We had the fire trucks on the
Saturday pull up and hose everyone down in the heat, everyone really appreciated
that.”
Highest team fundraisers were the Loved Ones, collecting more than
$6000, while the highest individual total went to Tayla Anderson who raised more
than $2000.
In contrast to this year, where there was a last minute rush in
sign-ups, next year’s 14th annual relay is already looking busy.
“We’ve got
11 teams on board for 2014 which is a really good start,” Ms Jones said.
