Some smile. Some weep. Others grit their teeth in grim determination all night long.
They are gathering to spend a night meeting old and new friends, noting with sadness the absence of those who attended previous events, and celebrating their own lives and remarkable recoveries by other people.
The event is the Canadian Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life that will run again this year in Guelph on June 8 and in Fergus on June 15.
The Fergus event is celebrating its 10th anniversary. For one organizer of that event, Jennifer Stewart-May, the attraction is the slogan of Relay for Life: Celebrate, Remember, Fight Back.
For Donna Gear, who has lost family to cancer and who is a survivor, the event, while emotional, has another focus.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she said in an interview a few weeks before the Relay for Life event at the Sportsplex grounds in Fergus.
Canadian Cancer Society fundraiser Amie Banks has another attitude. “I’m going to be mad,” she said. “I just lost an uncle.”
Together they reflect all aspects of the event’s motto.
Stewart-May celebrates the survivors, and she concedes it is sometimes difficult remembering loved ones who lost their battle with the dreaded disease.
“It is difficult. In the first year, I look back – particularly, I cried the entire survivor lap.” That’s the opening walk with those who are fighting cancer or who are in remission. “The fighting back is the biggest part of the relay,” Stewart-May said.
She cited an advertisement that was published in this Newspaper that stated, “If cancer had a face, I’d punch it.” She plans to have a punching bag at the Relay to give people an opportunity to take a swing at the potent killer.
Relay for Life is a fundraiser held across Canada. People arrive at the site at 6 to 7pm and take turns walking a track all night. They have sponsors who pay them for every lap they walk, and that money goes to fund research to fight cancer. They set up tents, they barbecue, they listen to music and they socialize. And they walk, sometimes in shifts, until the following morning.
Gear has been doing the all-nighter since 2003.
“I lost a really good friend and co-worker. I wondered if there was anything I could do,” she said. The very next week she heard an announcement about Relay for Life and found her answer.
Participants in teams attempt to outdo each other in raising funds. Gear said the first Relay she attended was in Guelph and, “There must have been 60 teams.” She works at The Cooperators in Guelph, and said teams there eventually formed, based on departments. Donna and her “Elves” have been the top fundraisers at the Fergus Relay for Life for several years in a row, and she sees it as a worthwhile, friendly competition.
Gear said soon after friends started dropping in during the night, and when that happens at 2am and they ask, “Can I walk with you,?” it becomes really emotional for her. While Gear admits it was difficult for her to “get out there and do that healing” at first, she now channels her emotions into fundraising.
“I play on people’s emotions to raise money,” she said with a smile. “I am shamelessly asking you for money … I use my mother a lot.”
She often hears, “It’s been three years since I lost my mom – here’s 50 bucks.”
Gear uses email to contact potential donors, and has 200 people in her department. She sends memos on her team’s progress and will tell them “We’re a little bit short.”
And, the Monday after the relay, she emails them all to announce how she and the Elves did.
She added with a laugh that she and her team are all mothers and, “We can guilt like nobody else” to raise funds from the reluctant.
Gear’s first year goal was $1,000 and she raised $1,500. The next year she set the bar at $2,000. This year the goal is $5,000.
“Every year, it’s gone up,” she said.
Gear added everyone has their own technique for raising money. One woman went to a bingo and asked people there for a toonie. Instead, most gave her $2 to $5.
Stewart-May said, “If you have 500 friends on Facebook and ask each for $5 … ”
Gear added, “It all goes into one pot.”
Stewart-May said it is particularly nice to get up on the stage at 2:30am and announce the event has raised $80,000. She said between the Guelph and Fergus events last year, participants raised over $185,000.
Hiding a cure?
Gear said the luminaries are a highlight for her. People buy covered candles for $5 and they burn around the track all night long.
Some people place them at their tents and it is not unusual to see notes such as “For Mom” on them. Those are also available on the Relay for Life website.
Banks explained the Guelph and Fergus events use to be tied together but that changed. The city event is on June 8 this year at Guelph Lake, and the Fergus one is on June 15 .
If there is one thing that riles the trio it is hearing people say someone has a cure for cancer and is hiding it because fighting it supports so many people. There is no conspiracy, they insist.
First, there are over 200 different kinds of cancer that can attack people, and all of them are different.
Banks said, “Each one has a different strand.”
Gear said research has led to treatments being much better today. Her mom fought cancer for 20 years in total and she remembers chemotherapy in the 1970s “was devastating to her.” When the cancer re-occurred 15 years later, treatment was much advanced. Gear said it is the same today with radiation.
Banks added, “Everything is getting better. It’s like the first car … today you’re looking at Porches.”
Stewart-May is “100% sure they don’t” hide a cure. “Do you know how many survivors there are?” she asked.
Gear said each one of her Elves had a different kind of cancer they survived.
Stewart-May added, “Look at what mastectomies did back then. Now, they can do lumpectomies.”
Last year the Canadian Cancer Society spent $23 million on research. She said a woman she knows had eye cancer in the 1970s and lost an eye. When she got pregnant in the 1990s they tested her son in the uterus and found he had the gene, too. He was treated in the uterus and when he was born, “He didn’t have it.”
It is that kind of results that keeps the trio going.
Gear said there are a lot of expensive drugs available, some as costly as $2,200 a month, and the Canadian Cancer Society pays for them.
Banks added, “Clinical trials can give people extra years. My uncle was diagnosed with a life expectancy of a few months. He lived for five years.”
Gear added, “My mom got two more years.”
Banks said, “And a better quality of life … 60% of people diagnosed with cancer today will live. In 1940, it was 25%. That’s a huge difference. The more money that goes into research … ”
Area merchants are providing a lot of support for the Relay events, including food and prizes. The Fergus Pipe Band will perform and lead the Survivors walk at the Fergus event.
Stewart-May said this year there will be an air band contest, and people should know “it’s so much fun.” Visitors are also welcome to drop in, walk or just watch. When it comes to the air band contest, Banks said, “By that time of the night we’ll all be delirious.”
Stewart-May said air band participants should simply put a song on a CD and bring it to compete.
Another team is holding a silent auction this year and Stewart-May said it has “some really nice stuff.”
The Big Survivor reception runs 6 to 7:30pm, and someone is making that group 108 special cupcakes. Survivors who want to take part can register on line.
Stewart-May explained how effective research has really been.
“We have a lot of survivors this year – 48. It’s a testament to the research,” she said.
For more information on Relay for Life visit www.cancer.ca/relay and follow directions to the local events.
