Who has been touched by cancer in your life? If you have, please stand up.

That’s the question Mary Beth Davison asks her students every semester. The Georgia Perimeter College science professor has dealt with cancer more than once in her own life: her dad died of the disease, and she herself was diagnosed with skin cancer.

Invariably, everyone stands up, she says. “Unfortunately, we all know someone who has had cancer, recovered from cancer or died from cancer,” she says.

While studying the causes of cancer is part of her anatomy and physiology course, it also helps with fundraising for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life of Newton County, she says.

Since 2011, Davison has offered extra credit to her students who research different cancers and present posters on the topic. It’s part of the Newton Campus Student Life fundraising effort for Relay for Life.  

The students make it personal, she says. “One of my students had a sister who died of cancer; another had a child who had survived cancer.” Both created posters for the fundraiser.

The posters are displayed in the campus atrium, and students “vote” for the best poster, she says.

 Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to stuff the ballot box with as many votes as they want. “It costs a buck a vote, and you can vote for your own poster as many times as you want,” says Davison.

This year, GPC Newton students raised almost $900. Most of Davison’s students volunteer to walk in the local Relay for Life event, as does Davison who has participated for the past five years.

This year’s relay will be held at the Church of Covington beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 24, but Davison and her students will be there by 5:30 p.m. to set up the GPC table and tent. There is a luminary lighting at 9 p.m. The overnight event will end at 7 a.m. Saturday.

“The program is so moving,” says Davison, whose eyes well up with tears at the thought. “If you have ever been touched by someone with cancer, this program brings back so many memories. It also makes you want to kick this disease to the roadside and move on.”