At last weekend's Relay for Life, volunteers from Loyola and the surrounding community may have banded together towards a single cause, but each person in attendance had their own unique reason for joining the fight against cancer.
Relay for Life attendees Maria Spinnato and Tim Whittle met when they were both teenagers with cancer. Spinnato was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 12, Whittle with leukemia at 18.
"We met at a 'teenagers with cancer' event, and she actually convinced me to volunteer at a camp for kids with cancer," Whittle said. "We became friends, and we've been together ever since."
Spinnato and Whittle, who are now 25 and 27 respectively, describe themselves as practically married. They are both sit on the committee for Camp Sunrise, an annual week-long camp for children and teenagers diagnosed with cancer.
Both are cancer-free or as they said in perfect unison "so far so good."
Their involvement with Camp Sunrise brought them to Loyola's Relay, where they were speaking about the camp.
They said that they were impressed with the Relay, especially because it was the school's first.
"It's overwhelming to see all of the support, everyone cares and everyone's enthusiasm, and the students .... it's amazing," Spinnato said.
They said that one of their favorite events was the survivor's lap that kicked off the night
"Everyone was cheering everybody on, and the kids that were holding the banner were giving each other high-fives," Spinnato said.
The two students who carried the banner were selected from the students at the event. Sophomore Brigid Hanahan was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 7, and her boyfriend Christopher Johnson, while never having the disease himself, witnessed several family members' bouts with it.
"It didn't start affecting me until I was old enough to realize what really happened, and it made me realize how lucky I am," Hanahan said.
She said that she decided to join relay because of "the struggle that people go through, the struggle that they're still going through," but that the atmosphere at the event was more celebratory than somber.
Both Hanahan and Johnson said that the carrying the banner was a "gratifying experience."
"Walking around the track at first I was embarrassed, and then we sort of rounded the bend, and I heard people being like 'Brigid, Brigid, Brigid,' and I got really excited by the end," Hanahan said.
Marcus Walker, who is the co-director and co-chair of Camp Sunrise, and Shawn Keiley, who is a camp counselor and was the co-director of the Relay for Life at Johns Hopkins, also attended on behalf of the camp.
"I've been to a lot of relays, and a lot of them on college campuses. It seems like there's a lot more college students, versus adults and their families. It's neat to see that power all coming from the population," Walker said.
Keiley, who never had cancer herself, said that she became involved after her mother died of the disease.
"I lost my mother to cancer six years ago, and I grieved for a very long time. And then finally I turned it into something positive," she said. "Now I fight the disease with everything I have in me."
Keiley admitted that the Loyola relay had raised more money than the one she co-chaired a week ago.
"It would be great if every Relay could make more money than the one before," she said.
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