Walking for life, cancer research, hope

Relay for Life begins Friday evening

This weekend, people are going to be taking steps towards hope.

The Grant/South Adams Relay for Life event will begin Friday at 6 p.m., and go until noon Saturday at the Moses Lake High School track.

Thirty teams, comprised of different groups and organizations from around the area, will participate in the event, in its 16th year.

"Out of each team, at least one person has to be walking the track all 18 hours, so we all take different shifts," said Jennifer Clark, Samaritan Healthcare lab office assistant and co-captain of the Samaritan Healthcare team. "(The length of a person's walk) depends on how big your team is. This year, our team is pretty big. We have 20-some team members, so we're taking one-hour shifts or half-hour shifts, depending on what people can do with their work schedules. Other teams that only have six people on a team are going to walk for a couple hours. So it varies."

The goal of this year's relay is to raise $85,000 for the American Cancer Society, Clark said.

"The money goes mainly towards cancer research," she said. "They have already given $12 million this year to universities in this area — Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington, Washington State University — and they also support programs."

ACS services offered in Moses Lake include Reach to Recovery, Road to Recovery and housing/hotel or air transportation programs provided to patients who travel to Spokane or Seattle for cancer treatment.

"I don't think the public realizes, you have cancer, you're in need and then you go, 'What am I going to do? I have to pay for hotels in Spokane during chemotherapy,'" Clark said. "This is out there to help you."

Clark said that Samaritan Healthcare first got involved — it has participated in 15 of the 16 relays — because an emergency room nurse had breast cancer, and staff banded together in support.

Clark said that the organization was the top fund-raiser last year with $7,400, and she's hoping for a repeat.

"This year we've already turned in $9,700, and I'm crossing my finger that we can turn in a couple thousand more on Friday," she said.

While each team member is required to have $150 to be on a team, Clark said Samaritan Healthcare has also done bake sales, dress-down days for staff members who contribute $5 and a cookbook.

"We have a huge raffle," she said. "We've got like 60 items that are in the ER so people can go there, buy tickets and Friday we'll do a raffle for that."

The raffle has raised over $1,000, Clark said.

She said that the relay is important to the community because the money raised is going to make a difference in cancer research.

"Just (Monday) night on the news they were talking about new cancer treatment called targeted therapy," Clark said. "Even though it's in the trial stages, they foresee that as making a significant difference in cancer treatment. And when there's a cure, obviously it's going to impact our area as well as everybody's."

The relay is free and open to the public. Clark recommended coming out to see the event and walking around the track.

"At 6 p.m., they do the opening ceremonies, and the survivors wear different colored shirts; they stand out from everybody else," Clark said. "It's just neat to sit there and watch the survivors take their lap, and you have people from a two-year-old in the blue shirt, which means that they're a survivor or they're currently fighting their battle, up to people that are walking around in a walker or they're being pushed in a wheelchair. It really shows the range that it can hit anybody."

At 10 p.m., will be the luminaria ceremony, with a prayer said by Kent Copley, pastor of Moses Lake Alliance Church.

"On the high school bleachers they spell out the word 'hope" with candles," Clark said. "It's really neat, it's very emotional."

Additional information about the ACS and their programs can be accessed at www.cancer.org or by calling at 1-800-ACS-2345. This number is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and calls are answered by a live cancer information specialist.