Walking for Our Lives Far East County Relay For Life Gears up for its Second Year April 2006

by Brett Morey
Photos by Russell Byrne

Last July at the Sunset Park Athletic Complex in Brentwood, we the people of Far East County participated in our first Relay For Life, which included teams of people walking for 24 hours in an effort to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The Far East County effort received the “Top Relay Baby Award” for raising more funds – a whopping total of $133,639 – than any other first-year Relay For Life in California.

People and organizations from across East County were represented. Last year more than 4,600 of these events were held across the country and around the world raising more than 350 million dollars for the American Cancer Society.

An Indescribable Event
It’s difficult for attendees to find words to adequately describe what a moving and jubilant affair last year’s Relay For Life actually turned out to be. Even during the setup, the Sunset Sports Complex seemed to be charged with a fierce and joyful energy. Booths, tents, and stations began popping up all over the field. A spirit of generosity seemed to fill the place throughout the entire affair. From the pancakes that the Rotary Club began to make early on Saturday morning down to the final bottles of ice water that were passed out on Sunday afternoon, people and organizations were sharing resources, stories, hugs, laughter, and tears with a sense of unbounded communal delight.

One of the most moving events occurred right at the beginning of the actual walk. All the participants who had suffered from cancer took the first “Survivor’s Lap.” The sight of those people walking together, dressed in their special purple shirts with their gold survivor medals flashing in the sunlight created a remarkable effect. The ambling march of these people turned into a joyful and triumphant celebration of life. Some of the marchers in that first lap – men, women, and children alike – had heads that had been recently bald. Some were walking with canes and others were being pushed in wheel chairs. The other participants were all cheering and applauding. But there were tears in the eyes of a lot of the spectators, as well.

That Survivor’s Lap seemed to catch the spirit of the entire event. It wasn’t uncommon during those 24 hours to see people laughing and to see people crying – and often somehow managing to do the two things at the same moment. The laughter and the tears both marked an underlying sense of fierce determination that we were doing something good together to help bring cancer to an end.

One of the sources of the energy in the Relay For Life came from the personal experiences with cancer that all of us have had, which creates a “fellowship of suffering” when we get together for experiences like this. The fact is that cancer has touched the lives of us all. Family members and friends have contracted skin, lung, and ovarian cancer, plus leukemia. For example, my mom survived cancer after having to endure a double-mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery. This was very tough for her, but today she looks healthy and feels great. My grandmother survived breast cancer in the late 1940s, which required surgery that was much more invasive than it would have been today. She not only survived, but lived to her late 70s. Other family members died of tumors and cancer-related diseases.

My neighbor, Tony, had the same chemotherapy treatment that was given to Lance Armstrong. Thanks to the tools of detection and treatment he, like Lance, is free of any cancer and has a clean bill of health.

Even when people survive the ravages of cancer, however, the disease extracts a tremendous price including expenses, plus the toll on relationships and peace of mind. The pain endured by children and spouses is enormous.

Hands-on Training in Responding to Tragedy
My participation in the Relay For Life is part of my personal commitment to the principle that each of us ought to do whatever we can in this world to provide assistance for people who need our help. Through the Brentwood Rotary Club last year, for example, I headed up our project to provide assistance to the people who were affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes.

My family and I lived for two years in Alabama where I was working for American Honda. We spent some of our family holiday time vacationing throughout the New Orleans area as a way of broadening the children’s life experiences and letting them see new places and meet new people. We came to appreciate the warm affability and apparent goodness of many southern people. They are marching to slower cadences than are some of us. They don’t consider time spent with friends or even with a car full of tourists to be wasted.

So when I was sitting here in Brentwood and watching reports of the Katrina disaster from thousands of miles away my heart was touched with the plight of those good people. I wasn’t content simply to watch. I knew in my heart that we could make a difference. I called up Greg Robinson, our Rotary President, and asked him, “Do you think the Rotary Club could get supplies down to the people in New Orleans?” That’s the kind of question that in our club can get you involved in a lot of work.

Greg replied right on cue, “Would you spearhead it?” I answered, “Yes.”

It’s funny how things work out sometimes, because ten minutes after we got finished with that conversation Greg called me back. “I just got a call from a guy named Ty Washburn who wants to help,” he said. “Can you call him?”

Between the two of us, working with other Rotarians and community volunteers, Ty and I put together a substantial relief effort for the Katrina victims. Ty called hundreds of trucking companies and eventually located a company in San Diego who would supply two trucks, fuel, drivers, and expenses.

We used all the media that was accessible to us including radio spots, email messages, and newspapers. We got the Brentwood, Byron, Knightsen, and Oakley school districts involved. I was moved by the willingness of people to do whatever they could. They would come with boxes full of stuff they had collected from friends and neighbors. In some cases it was new merchandise they had just purchased from a store. When they saw those empty trucks, many of them rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

The day we sent the second truck off to the Gulf Coast, I returned home exhausted but filled with a sense of happy relief. I reheated leftovers from some Chinese take-out my wife had brought in. I opened a fortune cookie and read, “You will be involved in many humanitarian projects.” It seemed like a Word from God, who sends all good things.

Because last year’s event was Far East County’s first Relay For Life, we were still learning. Almost from the first moments, it seemed, we began to hear a comment that seemed to be repeated constantly throughout the event, “Just wait until next year!”

Well, now it is the “next year” that we all were looking forward to last year, and I’m heavily involved in ensuring that this year’s experience will be even better than last year’s.

Planning to Improve Upon Success
Through managing the Katrina effort, I gained a lot of invaluable experience in using print and radio to network with the people in East County. David Wall, a fellow Rotarian recently retired from the fire service, signed up with Windy Robertson to co-chair this year’s Far East County Relay For Life Committee. In the spirit of “If you want something done, find someone who is busy,” David then asked me if I was willing to help out. “Use me where I can best serve,” I told him. Since he knew about the work I had done for the Katrina effort, David assigned me to help with the media.

I have a very clear understanding of what the Relay For Life is all about and why we’re doing it. When people suffer from cancer we tend to do what we can to help them. We mow their grass, go shopping for them, run errands, et cetera. Activities like Relay For Life provide us with opportunities to multiply our efforts. We can directly touch the lives of survivors who attend this, and indirectly touch the lives of all cancer victims by raising funds for research, advocacy, education, and services. 

The passion that seemed to fill the heart of every Relay For Life participant stemmed from the sense each of us had that “I can’t do much, but I can do this! I can’t stop my friends from suffering and dying, but I can show my commitment by walking around this track and helping raise money that might someday put an end to this misery.“

The whole point of the Relay For Life is to increase survivorship among people who fall victim to cancer. If we raise 200 or 300 thousand dollars this year, our efforts will serve to prolong the lives of those afflicted by this disease, or to free them from the disease altogether. It’s a noble effort and one that’s worth all the money and other resources that we can give to it.

Tremendous headway has been made, but much more research is necessary in detecting the disease much earlier and treating it much more effectively. They tell us that during 2006 more than 135 thousand people living in the U.S. will hear the ominous words, “You have cancer.” More than a thousand people every week will die of the disease.

The American Cancer Society has set some wonderful goals for itself. By 2015 the society intends to cut in half the number of people dying of cancer, to reduce by a quarter the number of people getting cancer, and to improve the quality of life of all those affected by the disease.

I’m joining with many other people in a determination to not quit working until, first of all, everyone who gets cancer becomes a survivor. After that we’ll keep working until finally nobody gets this awful disease any more.

When that happens we’ll quit the Relay For Life. But not before!

If putting one foot in front of the other can lead to a cure, we’re prepared to walk this disease right off the face of the earth!

Building on last year’s tremendous success, the 2006 Relay For Life of Far East County will be held on June 24 & 25 at the Sunset Park Athletic Complex in Brentwood. We’ve set goals of at least 100 teams, raising more than 250 thousand dollars, and involving more than 300 cancer survivors.

For more information visit www.cancer.org or register for the 2006 Relay For Life of Far East County at www.acsevents.org/relay/ca/brentwood. For cancer information anytime, call the American Cancer Society at 800-ACS-2345.