The 10th Relay For Life fundraising effort in Second Life kicks off this weekend, even though it’s sort of the 11th, there was a fundraising effort in 2004 but it wasn’t an official Relay For Life event, that started in 2005.
The opening ceremony takes place tomorrow on Saturday 8th March but events start today. There’s a list of events here: http://relayforlifeofsecondlife.org/events-list/ That page gets updated regularly.
For those who don’t know, Relay For Life is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and has a long history of being involved in Second Life. There are many events and associated events throughout the year, some you may attend without even realising it’s a relay for life event. For example Fantasy Faire is part of the fundraising.
However this weekend sees the start of the main organisation and overall body for those fundraising efforts. Second Life users have over the years very generously donated Linden dollars which are then converted into real dollars for this cause.
The fundraising started in 2004, when a total of US$2,000 was raised since then a lot more money has been raised:
- 2005 – US$5,000
- 2006 – US$41,000
- 2007 – US$118,500
- 2008 – US$215,000
- 2009 – US$274,000
- 2010 – US$222,804
- 2011 – US$375,000
- 2012 – US$375,385
- 2013 – US$393,000
According to my calculator that’s a total of US$2,021,689 raised by Second Life users.
The Relay For Life Wiki has a lot more information about the history of this event and also has videos of some past events.
This year’s theme is a journey of promise.
The weekend kicks off with a celebration so it’s time to have fun as well as to assist this excellent cause with their fundraising efforts. I think it’s fair to say that there are a large number of generous users amongst the Second Life world and those efforts are time well spent.
To give you an idea of what this celebration may well involve, I’ll post information from their website:
Relay For Life of Second Life kicks off it’s fundraising season on March 7-9th with a weekend FULL of celebration! Teams have been registering and will be present at the kick-off regions with team vendors, kiosks and flags waving to show their team spirit. 2014 RFL of SL Logo Final square 1024x1024If you haven’t registered a team yet click on the orange button on the right side of this page to do so and come join us! The festivities begin on Friday evening with T1 radio on the mic as teams set up their fundraising tools and the pep rally takes place. On Saturday at noon the official Kick-Off Ceremony will begin. This year’s ceremony will be presented by the 2014 Steering Committee, Stingray Raymaker, Nikki Mathieson, Dawnbeam Dreamscape and Random Padar Darrow. It will also include a survivor speaker NickiB27 and readings from this year’s Division Chairs, Gemstone Sunkiller (Internal Support), Sunshine Zhangsun (Events/Design), Serina Juran (PR, Outreach) and Dwen Dooley (Tech). The ceremony will conclude with the traditional PARADE OF TEAMS and with that, the 2014 RFL of SL Journey will officially begin!
DJ hosted music and dancing will run throughout the afternoon and evening of Saturday, March 8th while lots of fun and games will take place on Sunday, the 9th. Games include Family Feud, Pictionary and a Relay kissing booth, where it just takes 1700L raised to earn this years coveted, ‘Kiss me I RELAY’ T-Shirt. Plan to spend the weekend Relaying by joining the Kick-Off Celebration and by visiting team events, which you can keep track of by visiting this page.
If you cannot attend in person, the Kick-off Ceremony will be streamed on T1 Radio (t1radio.com). For landmarks to the Kick-Off regions or more information, please check the notices in either of our inworld groups (Relay For Life Volunteers or Relay For Life Info Only).
Whether you’re a team captain, a sponsor, an organiser, a visitor, a donor, a vendor or whatever, have fun, enjoy the events and find the time to support this worthwhile cause.