Participants in the Relay for Life make their final lap yesterday                          250News photo

Prince George, BC – "This event wouldn't be what it is without – I was going to say the 'small' army of volunteers – but it's a 'giant' army of volunteers," said the Canadian Cancer Society's Team Lead for Community Giving, Helen Owen, at the closing ceremonies for the 22nd Annual Relay for Life at Masich Place Stadium yesterday morning.

"What a sense of community," said Owen, in acknowleding the survivors and their caregivers, the numerous sponsors and donors, and the army of volunteers that were part of the weekend fundraiser.  "I continue to be blown away at the support from this amazing community."

"We had a record number of volunteers helping us in all aspects of relay this year and we're very, very grateful for that – we introduced a lot of new things and we wouldn''t have been able to do it without all of the people who showed up at the event to help out."

After 10-months of planning and hundreds, if not thousands, of volunteer hours in the run up to this past weekend's event, 180 people checked in at the volunteer registration to help at the field over the course of the weekend.  However, Volunteer Leadership Committee Co-Chair, Davy Greenlees, said the actual number was closer to 250 people helping out.

"We do literally have an army that comes in here – some people for only a few hours, " said Greenlees, "Others, like the Venturers and Rovers, started with me at seven o'clock Friday morning and they'll still be here (today) when the last bits of things move out at five o'clock."

Greenlees admitted the annual fundraiser is a huge production, but said, "We've done it for a few years now, so the team that I've got is quite used to it – it's nice, it works like clockwork."

"I've got a good crew and when things go a little bit sideways, nobody gets excited, we just fix it and nobody ever knows that things went sideways."

Photo at left shows Venturers Josh Redfern (l) and Jonah Goyer, and Rover Dirk Greenlees (r) at their station at the entrance to Masich Place Stadium, where they were based for the weekend.

Just last month, the group was presented with the Canadian Cancer Society's Youth Achievement Award for their involvement in the relay. (click here, for previous story)

In the coming days, the Relay's Volunteer Leadership Committee will do some de-briefing and wind down.  Davy Greenlees says the bulk of the volunteers will then have a two-month break before gearing up for the 2015 Relay for Life.

"Then we start meeting and planning again – we start brainstorming and we try and out-do ourselves every year."

Photo below shows the luminaries still lining the side of the track as the 24-hour event drew to a close yesterday morning.