By Carly Maga
Dressed in white and pink t-shirts, with pink ribbons in their hair, 38 retail students, their friends and family took part in the CIBC Run for the Cure early Sunday morning.
The Ryerson Retail Thinks Pink team, made up solely of Retail students, was the largest of four Ryerson teams to take part in the CIBC Run for the Cure this year.
Avani Chheda, a fourth-year retail management student and president of the Retail Students’ Association (RSA), said she was surprised the team grew as large as it did.
“We’ve had an incredible response of almost 40 people. This is a small program, there are less than 350 students across all four years. We weren’t expecting that many,” she said.
In it’s first year taking part, the Retail team raised $4,200, including required registration fees of $1,200, for breast cancer research, awareness and improving the quality of life of cancer sufferers. The RSA and the Ryerson Commerce Society made donations in addition to community donations.
Two captains of the Ryerson University team, Sandra Mueller and Amy Casey, both breast cancer survivors themselves, are excited about the number of Ryerson students who got involved in the run.
“What makes me happiest about the whole thing is that there are three student teams. Maybe we’ll join their team next year. We probably can’t keep up with them, but we’ll try,” said Casey, the Associate Director of Administration at the Chang School.
Student participation was present across Toronto according to Victoria Pearson, the manager of communications for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, Ontario region.
Pearson said that out of the 943 teams registered for the Toronto run, about 70 were associated with high schools, colleges and universities.
“It’s amazing the contributions that Ryerson students have given. I really can’t say enough of the students that participate. We’re so grateful,” she said.
With the success of the Run for the Cure, Chheda hopes to participate in Harry’s Spring Run-Off in April, a run to battle prostate cancer sponsored by Harry Rosen.
Chheda said she thinks it is important for course unions to be involved with charitable events and that she hopes next year’s RSA will take part in the run.
The CIBC Run for the Cure raised $26.5 million dollars and about 170,000 people participated.
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