From 7pm to 7am, the gymnasium is converted to “tent city” as students stayed up all night, engaging in various activities to promote cancer awareness. Around 200 students came to this event, which was comparable to last year. In total, $73,000 was raised.
Registration started around 5pm. Given the scale of this event, lots of volunteers were used to handle additional errands. The result was quite disorganized and chaotic. People filed in and grabbed ID tags, shirts at random. There was no way to confirm attendance.
As people settled in, the food started rolling out at 10pm. Almost 100 boxes of pizza was ordered, along with several boxes full of fruits, pastries etc. to keep participants satisfied throughout the night. Unfortunately they lost out on the key Starbucks sponsorship from last year. After much commotion, pizza was served to the huge lineup. Again, it was unfortunate the food coordinator didn’t order enough pizza, and the latecomers didn’t receive any.
In a private room, cancer survivors were fed a special “survivor’s dinner”. It was pizza again, but from Boston Pizza, so a much higher caliber.
The rest of night was not very eventful. Participants were diffusely spread along the racetrack, tent city and anywhere in between. I called it a night and didn’t stay until the morning.