Moses Lake Relay for Life coming this weekend

MOSES LAKE — Those looking to help raise money for cancer treatment and cancer research, as well as those looking to spend a night wandering around the track at Moses Lake High School, are in luck — the annual Relay For Life is this Friday and Saturday.

The 13-hour-long fundraising event begins at 6 p.m. Friday at the Moses Lake High School track, and will involve walking or dancing or running around the track for the next 13 hours, ending on 7 a.m. Saturday, raising money with each lap they complete.

“There’s a significance,” Relay board member Shannon Poff said. “You start in daylight, when things are great. And then the darkness comes, when you find out you have cancer, and then the daylight comes again — you find you’ve beaten cancer.”

Poff, who has been running the Moses Lake Relay For Life for the last three years and involved for the last 29 years because “there’s a whole lot of cancer in her family,” will be too busy directing the event this year to spend much time circling the track.

“I’m going to be on my feet the entire time,” she said.

Poff hopes to see between 300-400 people show up this year — as many as have walked in the last few years.

“It’s kind of iffy, a lot of people who don’t sign up come and walk, and there are also survivors who show up too,” she said.

The Relay For Life was started in 1985 when Gordon Klatt, a Tacoma physician, decided to walk around a local high school track for 24 hours straight to help the American Cancer Society raise money for cancer research.

Since then, it has expanded to 27 countries and involved thousands of volunteers. The Moses Lake Relay For Life is from Friday, June 23 to Saturday, June 24, while the Othello Relay For Life begins on July 21. Anyone interesting in participating can sign up at www.relayforlife.org.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.