Relay for Life cancer fundraiser marks 30th year

Hundreds of local cancer survivors, caretakers and family members gathered at noon Saturday to walk in the 30th annual Relay for Life.

People planned to walk around a track at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau from noon until midnight to raise money for cancer research, treatments and other services for cancer patients.

This year's event had a decade theme, commemorating the Relay for Life's 30th annual event in Cape Girardeau. The event, organized through the American Cancer Society, has become a nationwide tool in the fight against cancer. Those attending were gathered to help stamp out cancer, but they also carried their own stories of friends, loved ones or family members touched by the disease.

Rose Lee Kern and her best friend Carolyn Hinkle showed up in handmade poodle skirts.

"We've been best friends since high school in 1958," Hinkle said. "The poodle skirts are for the '50s."

Cancer survivors Patricia Brewer Wallace, left, and Joyce Penny greet each other during the opening ceremony of the Relay for Life. (Glenn Landberg)

Along with the felt skirts and white Keds, Kern also wore the purple "Survivor" T-shirt the Relay for Life staff gave to all those who had survived cancer. Two years ago, Kern attended her first Relay for Life after receiving her diagnosis. She knew Hinkle would be there to walk beside her, but she said she hadn't counted on the volume of support the Relay for Life provides.

"You'd be surprised just how many people have cancer," she said. "And everyone's so nice to you; it's wonderful. It almost makes you cry."

Fellow survivor and first-time attendee Sheri Farmer agreed, saying once you hear a doctor say you have cancer, your perspective changes, and it's nice to be reminded of just how many people understand what you're going through.

"Until you get cancer, you don't realize how many other people have cancer," she said. It also is reassuring to know people do beat it, she said.

"There was an ice cream social at the hospital that I went to, and there was one lady there who had been a survivor for 40 years," she said.

But Relay for Life is about more than community support and awareness. Relay for Life Fund the Mission chairwoman Holly Lintner explained it's a potent fundraising tool.

"We raise money year-round," she said. "But today's a big part of that."

She said last year, the Cape Girardeau arm of the American Cancer Society raised $142,000. This year's goal is even higher, at $160,000, and heading into today's event, they had already raised over $100,000 toward that goal.

Food, jewelery and clothing vendors lined the track, each one with a sign and fundraising information.

Mary Ellen Mohundro at the Drury Southwest Inc. tent sold T-shirts and gave away peppermints with inspirational messages. Their fundraising sign from last year read $24,843, and the current one read $33,500. She explained most of that comes from other events, such as the dinner they hold in March, but said folks in this area are always ready to contribute in the fight against cancer.

"People are very generous," she said. "We're thrilled to death."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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