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Ashley Cope

The Conejo Valley Relay for Life made its way to Cal Lutheran on Saturday, Oct. 1 to raise money for cancer research.

Community members walked for over 10 hours on Memorial Field to fundraise with the Conejo Valley Relay for Life, one of the regional branches of the American Cancer Society. The ACS supports cancer patients nationwide with their battle.

This event, which was Saturday, Oct. 1, started at 8 a.m. and lasted until 9 p.m. and helped the ACS fundraise money.  Teams were put together to help meet the Conejo Valley total goal of $75,000 for the ACS. Over 20 teams participated in this year’s relay, and the overall theme of the event was ‘Carnival for a Cure.’ 

“It is a very team-oriented fundraiser, so teams in the community sign up and they pretty much have free range to fundraise however they want,” John Routh, event co-lead, said. 

Each team has a booth comprised of different activities. People walking the field can pay to play the games, and the money earned goes toward the team’s fundraising goal. The event also included a silent auction, live music and other various activities such as kickboxing lessons. 

The event closed with the Luminaria Ceremony to honor the people who have gone through cancer. 

“There is bags along the track that are made either in memory of, in honor of, or in support of–people will, usually if they have a friend or family going through cancer, they’ll create a bag for $10 each and in the evening we will put candles in it and they will light the track,” Routh said. 

Participants were then able to walk around the lit-up field to reflect at the end of the event.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated this was the first time the event was hosted at Cal Lutheran. We regret this error.