By Drew Teague

Fun was still had by many at Relay for Life, even with the cold and rain of Saturday night.

Student organizations gathered at the Pieratt Student Recreation Field for UK’s Relay for Life walk, benefiting the American Cancer Society.

Economics and finance sophomore Brad Harris, who is co-chair for the event, said that even with the rain, this was one of the largest turnouts for the UK Relay event.

“(The rain) did get a lot of people to leave during the event, but initially we had large numbers,” Harris said.

The rain also affected some plans, not allowing the coordinators to do as many events for the participants to keep them going.

“The weather’s been a big deal,” Harris said. “We weren’t planning on any rain — the weather forecast was sunny. But with rain, it’s put a little damper on everything. We’ve had a great turnout regardless; we just can’t have as many games as we were going to.”

Because of the unexpected weather, organizers kept morale up through small events, like a superhero pageant and music, as well as personally thanking everyone for attending.

“We’ve been going from tent to tent, just thanking everybody for being here,” Harris said. “We’ve just been giving them motivation.”

What kept English and international studies sophomore Natalie Pitman walking through the rain, wind and cold was a story that started out the event, given by an organizer.

“At the beginning of this, the chair got up and he told a story and said he was talking about people who’ve been through chemo(therapy) and how weak they are when they get done,” Pitman said. “You know, just coming out here and walking for one night is not that big of a deal compared to people who have to go through chemo.”

Pitman, the Alpha Omicron Pi philanthropy chair, has wanted to get involved with this event for a while and help out the cause.

“They do (Relay) back where I’m from, and I’ve always wanted to get involved in it,” Pitman said.

Harris said fundraising occurs both online and through personal collection of money, and that Relay was hoping for a large total, based on the large crowd in attendance.

“This year, online, we’ve raised about $13,000,” Harris said. “We’re hoping (the total is) around $15,000.”

According to its website Sunday morning, 39 teams had 393 participants and raised a total of $19,230.36.