Country Sweethearts raises money for cancer fighters

MOSES LAKE — It’s a rare person who hasn’t been touched by cancer one way or another, said Jay Ballinger, who delivered the blessing before the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation’s Country Sweethearts banquet and auction Saturday. He asked each person in the room to call to mind someone affected by the disease – a survivor, a passed loved one, a caregiver, a health care worker – and take 30 seconds of silence to think about or pray for those people. “We are going to assail the gates of heaven tonight with prayers for every single person that 580 of us can think of,” Ballinger, a cancer survivor and former CBCF board member, said. “If you let me round that up to 600 and we do 30 seconds, that’s 300 minutes. That’s five hours of prayer.”