The Brandeis chapter of Colleges Against Cancer received the Leader of Hope award at the American Cancer Society's New England Division Relay for Life Collegiate Leadership Summit earlier this month.

The award is given to university chapters that fulfill requirements that include hosting at least six events over the course of the academic year, participating in conference calls, submitting content to the American Cancer Society website and filling out a year-end report. Brandeis was one of many universities that won this award.

According to Relay for Life Chair Hannah Katcoff '12, Brandeis' Colleges Against Cancer held approximately 17 events last year, well beyond the minimum for the award. The events included the annual Relay for Life, film screenings and Daffodil Days, during which the club teams up with the Waltham Group and sells daffodils to fundraise for the American Cancer Society.

Relay for Life is the signature fundraiser for the ACS, of which Colleges Against Cancer is a division. According to Katcoff, in the past, the Brandeis Relay raised as much as $86,000 in a year and had as many as 900 participants. Last year, the event had more than 800 participants and raised around $65,000.

"I think because of the type of people who go [to Brandeis], people want to help, people want to be at Relay," said Katcoff in an interview with the Justice. "No matter what background you're from, what political views you have, everyone still comes together at Relay [in support of] this one cause."

Ari Boltax '14, the publicity co-coordinator for Relay for Life, said that students don't need to have a direct link to cancer to get involved with the Relay and other Colleges Against Cancer events. "I don't have a personal connection [to cancer]," said Boltax, in an interview with the Justice.

"I've just found that it's really the community that drives it. You really get a sense of how much [of] a community Brandeis is, and it brings out the best in people."

The Relay organizers held a kick-off event at Cholmondeley's on Nov. 1 that featured a cappella groups and a talk by a cancer survivor. They also put on an event on Nov. 2 called "Jail and Bail," at which participating students and faculty were "jailed" in the Shapiro Campus Center, and students could bail them out with donations or pay to keep them in jail for longer. The event raised more than $1,400 for the Relay for Life.

Colleges Against Cancer has hundreds of chapters nationwide, according to the ACS website. The four "strategic directions" of the program are advocacy, cancer education, Relay for Life and survivorship.

As of Friday, this year's Relay had raised $2,892 and had 96 participants signed up.