The American Cancer Society celebrated its 100th birthday Saturday with a cancer walk at Eastern Michigan University. The Ypsilanti Relay for Life 2013 began at 10 a.m. and lasted 24 hours, raising over $10,000.
The relay walk, hosted by D Romeo (Robert Wilson) started with the “Star-Spangled Banner” and a lap by present cancer survivors clad in purple T-shirts. They were then joined on lap two around the pond by caregivers in green T-shirts and then after lap three, everyone was able to join.
Mary Beth Voight, a team organizer, has been running relay races for four years. She has been running for two years in Ypsilanti and two years in Bellville.
“For me, supporting something that fights back against cancer is so important,” Voight said. “My husband has lost three of his grandparents to cancer. We started this relay because it’s our church team and we had a member of the church who just died of pancreatic cancer. Last year he was fighting cancer. So we did this to support him [last year] and this year it’s in honor of him.”
The first relay for life walk was done 27 years ago by Dr. Gordon Klatt, a colorectal surgeon from Tacoma. Since the early 1990s, there has been a 14 percent decrease in cancer related death.
Since 1985, Relay for Life and the whole American Cancer Society has raised over $4 billion for cancer research, including $23.4 million from events on 467 collegiate campus’s and a hundred and three high school campuses raising a further $5.2 million.
Sponsors for the event included Meijer, Fox 2 News, 105.1 FM, Red Rock BBQ, Garret Landscaping, The Golden Egg restaurant and UAW Local 1976; which is the union used by the professional technical staff at Eastern Michigan University.
Although scheduled to last until 10 a.m. on Sunday, it was called off due to fatigue from the walkers. Nonetheless, it was a success, raising $11,977 for cancer research.
If you have any questions about the event, contact Steve Windom at steve.windom@cancer.org. You can also visit relayforlife.org, and volunteer for the Road to Recovery at cancer.org/treatment/supportprogramsservices/road-to-recovery.
One of the organizers, Kathie Pereira, clad in an orange event organizers’ T-shirt agreed to sit down for a Q & A with the Echo.
Q : How many people are participating?
A : I have 15 teams.
[It was actually 16 teams and 131 participants, according to the Relay for Life website.]
Q: We all know basic slogans of how to avoid cancer; don’t smoke, eat your vegetables, cut out the sugar. But what are some ways of preventing cancer that the average person wouldn’t know?
A: Our mission tent over there has a lot of information about that. They’re going to talk to you about diet and cancer-specific things. Like colon cancer: high fat, low fiber diets lead to colon cancer often. It’s actually 90 percent preventable if you follow the diet and get your colonoscopies on schedule.
Q: Other than donating, how can people help Relay for Life?
A: People can help plan one, be on a planning committee. Donating consists of buying a luminaire in honor of a loved one or someone they know. And they can support their local Relay for Life. This isn’t specific to Relay for Life, but they can also support the American Cancer Society by signing up for local services like Road to Recovery; driving people to their cancer treatments.
Q: Now that the American Cancer Society has been in existence for a hundred years, do you think that the cure for cancer is in sight, or is it decades away?
A: I still think it’s decades away. But we’re making so much progress. We’re actually making it treatable. It’s no longer a death sentence. If caught soon enough, almost every cancer is treatable. It’s curable. Preventable, we’re doing a lot about prevention too.
