As people were doing laps in the Coliseum for Relay for Life, another team was selling baked goods on Toomer’s Corner to raise money for the cause.

Shannon Polkowski was in charge of heading up this team from the Auburn Christian Student Center. She has been talking to people all semester about being a part of a team and raising money for Relay for Life, but no one seemed to be able to do it.

“It was really frustrating,” Polkowski said, “I asked everyone I knew, but most people were already busy that weekend, or told me they would and then backed out.”

But Polkowski and her small devoted team still wanted to do something and raise money to give to another team. So when the team heard about the Auburn University swim team being really involved this year they decided to give their money to them.

The swim team has a personal interest in cancer research because of the diagnosis of their current coach and the death of their coach a few years ago from this disease.

Polkowski had heard of a team last year setting up on Toomer’s Corner on a Friday night and selling baked goods to the bar crowd. She thought this was an excellent solution to her team’s problem and they decided to copy this brilliant idea.

“It sounded like such a good idea to me, and something that would be fun for us and would make some money for the cause,” Polkowski said.

So at 11 p.m. on Friday night Polkowski team set up downtown to sell their homemade goodies to a hungry bar crowd. But as midnight rolled around they encountered a problem.

The Baptist Student Ministry’s pancake ministry had come to give away free pancakes to the intoxicated crowd.

Will Holley, a team member, said, “We were scared for a while, because who wants to pay for something when you can go to the next table over and get something for free?”

The pancake ministry did feel bad for taking money away from such a good cause, so they encouraged their patrons to donate money even if they didn’t want to buy anything.

“It really helped,” Holley said, “We wouldn’t of made half the money we did with their encouragement.”

The team made about $160, which may not seem like much, but it was a priceless experience they would not trade anything for.