Relay for Life does help cancer patients

As co-chair for the 2019 Relay for Life I would invite the community to join us and take up the fight against a horrible disease. There is a lot of false information being told in our community and I would like to set the record straight. Moses Lake Relay for Life does not give money to people going through cancer, that is true. What we do is offer programs and services to those affected by cancer.

There is a 24/7 call center that last year alone took calls from over 200 people in the Grant County area, most of whom have called within a day of being told they had cancer, asking questions, et cetera. Relay for Life money also supports other programs. Over the course of time the American Cancer Society has funded 47 Nobel Prize-winning researchers, the most recent just announced today. Without these researchers we wouldn’t see the increase in survivors today that we do.

I lost my father in 2005 and my husband in 2010 to cancer. I was thankful to the call center for answering the questions I had after the shock wore off. I was lucky enough to have them both longer than the doctors thought. Both had cancers that aren’t researched enough and have very little treatments available. So when people say to me they want to support local cancer patients, all I can say is so do I. Every time there is a survivor the chances are pretty darn good they have been touched by American Cancer Society and Relay for Life dollars: the testing, the treatments, the prevention and the support. Yes, the money does help local people in a very important way.

Donna Anderson

Moses Lake