Read part one here

Students slowly trickle into the auditorium, not knowing what to expect. Dowling and Fraizer shout out over the side conversations to ensure that everyone signs in. Club members frantically run around the auditorium to pass around the sign-up sheet.  When the excitement dies down, the first Collins Against Cancer meeting begins.

The club started off with a bang, with just under 100 students in attendance to the first meeting. According to Dowling, he did not expect that many students to attend the first meeting.

“It’s kind of hard for people to get involved in clubs because a lot of people do athletics and stuff like that,” Dowling said. “It’s hard to make time for extra clubs, so I was very surprised.”

Sponsor, counselor Melissa Coleman, said that the large attendance shows the need for the club.

“Cancer touches a lot of people’s lives,” Coleman said. “It’s important to have an outlet and do something positive for a terrible disease. It’s easy to focus on the negative but it’s important to focus on the positive and to raise money for research is a nice way to accomplish that.”

Dowling spends two to three hours every week preparing for the meetings, time which he said is worth it.

“Being someone who doesn’t have cancer and seeing the people who do have cancer and all they have to go through, I guess it’s the least that I could do,” Dowling said. “For everything they have to go through, our little bit of time should be worth it, should be easy.”

A group of students gather around in a circle, their faces lit up solely by the candles in their hands. One by one they step up to share their experiences with cancer and how it has affected their lives.
Collins Against Cancer held a candlelight vigil on Oct. 12 as an event for the new club.

“The candlelight vigil was beautiful,” Coleman said. “It was a beautiful group of people and everyone was sharing their experiences and was open, caring and understanding. It was nice to see young and old come together and be there for each other.”

The vigil helped to raise awareness and also served as a way to honor those who have passed to cancer.

“A lot of kids who came had parents or family members or friends who were affected by cancer,” Dowling said. “It’s a way to let those people know that we’re not forgetting them. Even though they’re not here with us anymore they will never be forgotten. People got the chance to stand up and say what they needed to say and get out a lot of things that were maybe holding them back. I think it lifted a lot of weight for them.”

In addition to this, Frazier said the vigil helped show people that cancer can affect anyone.

“It brought attention to people’s emotions,” Frazier said. “We had people who wanted to share their experiences with cancer go around in the circle. I saw a lot of people’s faces go ‘oh my gosh, I knew her but I didn’t know she had that,’ or ‘I didn’t know that happened to her’. It was one of those big things to just get people aware of the fact that you never know.”

The club plans to continue their work to raise awareness and funds by holding another candlelight vigil in the Spring, hosting a Collins Against Cancer 5K, having a toy drive and participating in Relay for Life.