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Local Relay For Life teams to walk all Friday night
By Carey King
Spending an entire night making lap after lap around a track may sound like work, but Relay For Life team members know that by the time the walking starts this Friday, May 13, at the Jackson County Recreation Park, most of the real work will already be done.
“It’s really a celebration at that point,” said Margaret Hamilton, captain of the Relay’s Piney Mountain Motors team.
For months now, members of the 51 teams participating in the American Cancer Society fund-raiser have been working to earn the dollars that support the organization throughout the year. They’ve held gospel singings and cookouts. They’ve sold ACS paper stars, purple “Celebrate Life” bracelets, and the luminaries that this Friday will line the track. Several raffles will continue through Relay night – including Piney Mountain’s for a car, and the “Survivor All-Stars” team’s for a variety of prizes ranging from oil changes to jewelry.
Similar efforts last year netted $77,000 for ACS, a figure heads above 2003’s tally of $47,000, said Josh Pierce, director of the Cancer Society’s Jackson County chapter.
“The funds raised will enable us to continue our investment in the fight against cancer through educational programs, research and service to patients,” said Debbie Bryson, this year’s Jackson County Relay chairman. “Due to the generosity of Relay For Life fund-raising teams, corporate sponsors and the community at large, the money raised by participants goes directly to the American Cancer Society’s lifesaving programs.”
Nationally, those programs include funding for scientists doing groundbreaking work – work such as establishing a link between cancer and smoking, proving the effectiveness of the Pap smear in detecting cervical cancer, and developing cancer-fighting drugs. Since its founding in 1913, ACS has supported 38 Nobel Prize-winning researchers and become the largest source of non-governmental cancer research funding in the nation.
Dollars raised during the Relay back resources including a service that matches patients with clinical trials, a Cancer Survivors Network Web site, and a center that helps families who need financial aid.
In Jackson County, there’s “Reach to Recovery,” a network that links newly-diagnosed breast cancer patients with breast cancer survivors; “Look Good ... Feel Better,” the opportunity for any woman in treatment to meet with a specially-trained professional cosmetologist for a free makeover; and the service of providing transportation, plus wigs, bras, scarfs, hats and prostheses, to patients who need them. ACS also offers $1,000 college scholarships to cancer survivors who were diagnosed before age 21
“We’ve got great programs,” Pierce said.
A new offering that began just weeks ago is a cancer support group that meets at the Golden Age Senior Center. The group is open to all and will next meet from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Friday, May 20. (For more information, call Sue Burton at 293-7171.)
Each year, Relay time offers ACS the chance to let the public know it’s there to support them, Pierce said.
“Relay For Life is as much an awareness-raiser about the progress against cancer as it is a fund-raiser,” said Bryson.
“We want to invite all survivors across the county, whether they’re part of a team or not (to come to the Relay),” Pierce said. “This is an open invitation to the entire community to come fight cancer. This is a true community event.”
For more information about ACS and its programs, contact Pierce at 768-8845 or see www.cancer.org. For details on the Relay, call Bryson at 586-2773.
The lineup this Friday includes:
5:30-10 p.m. – Blood drive inside the Recreation Center.
6 p.m. – Opening prayer by Harris Regional Hospital Chaplain Ron Allen and words by ninth-grade cancer survivor Jenni Woody (see page 1C).
6:20 p.m. – Survivors Lap of past and present cancer patients led by bagpiper Josh Bulla and a Boy Scout colorguard.
6:35 p.m. – Caregivers Lap, with music by the Fiddling Dills Sisters.
6:50 p.m. – Team Lap, with music by the Fiddling Dills Sisters.
7 p.m. – Relay begins. In addition to the walkers making laps, there’ll be a moonwalk and dunking booth for kids, plus activities at team campsites. Disc jockey Paul Dupree will provide background sound.
7:30 p.m. – Costume contest for women and children.
8:30 p.m. – Lighting of luminaries in honor and memory of those who’ve battled cancer. Sweet Anointed gospel group will perform.
9 p.m. – “Miss Relay for Life” womanless beauty contest.
10 p.m. – Deane and Don will perform a mix of oldies, folk and pop.
11:30 p.m. – “Push, Pull or Carry” Lap.
1 a.m. – “Relay Poker” Lap.
2:30 a.m. – Crazy-Hat Lap.
4 a.m. – Raffle lap.
5:30 a.m. – Costume lap.
7 a.m. – Breakfast for walkers and survivors.
8 a.m. – Closing ceremony.
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