Volunteers ready to recruit teams, donors and study
participants
Relay for Life committee members gathered at the Veterans
Memorial Building May 1 despite rainfall to launch the Relay for
Life season.
Volunteers ready to recruit teams, donors and study participants
Relay for Life committee members gathered at the Veterans Memorial Building May 1 despite rainfall to launch the Relay for Life season.
“We were laughing about April showers coming a day late,” said Geri Johnson, a chairwoman for one of the Relay for Life committees.
From now until fall, Relay for Life teams throughout the nation will be holding the annual fundraiser and cancer awareness events. San Benito teams have already started forming for the July 31 – Aug. 1 event.
This year, San Benito has been selected as one of 21 sites in California that will be recruiting for a long-term study, the Cancer Prevention Study III. Johnson is in charge of recruiting participants and she hopes to get 200 people signed up.
“Overall, they hope to have a half a million people,” Johnson said.
To participate in the study, residents need to be between 30 and 65 years old, and not have been diagnosed with cancer (those who have had basal or squamous cell skin cancers that are not malignant can participate.)
On July 31 between 6:30 and 10:30 p.m., those interested in participating will need to provide a waist measurement and give a small amount of blood that will be collected by a certified, trained phlebotomist. After that, they will complete a survey about their medical history, lifestyle and behaviors. The most important part of the study, however, is that participants will be asked to complete a survey every other year for the next 20 years.
“[American Cancer Society] headquarters in Atlanta contacted us to see if our Relay could be a CPS study site,” Johnson said. “We were chosen because our community has been so involved.”
ACS has been conducting long-term studies since the 1950s, and in the past they have helped in understanding how lifestyle can increase or decrease the risk of cancer.
“Early studies linked smoking to cancer and second-hand smoke to cancer,” Johnson said.
The Hammond-Horn study looked at the habits of more than 188,000 men and examined the connection between cigarette smoking and death rates from cancer and other diseases. The study followed the participants for three years.
The first long-term study, Cancer Prevention Study I, started in 1959 and followed a million men and women until 1972.
Since then studies have found a link between air pollution and cardiopulmonary conditions; a link between postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy and breast and ovarian cancer; a link between diabetes and pancreas and colon cancers and other links between environmental or lifestyle factors and the risk of cancer.
Those interested in participating can sign up at the event or ahead of time by completing an enrollment form.
In addition to meeting their goal for enrollment in the study, the 2009 Relay committee members also hope to increase the number of teams and survivors who participate in the event, and match the money raised last year.
“We are hoping to get 160 survivors,” said Joan Moore, chairwoman of the survivors’ committee. “We are trying to get the word out. Relay is really about the survivors.”
During the event each year, the survivors take a lap around the track as a reminder of those who have been diagnosed and have survived the disease, or are still battling it.
This year the committee members plan to host a dinner for the survivors after they complete their lap and will give them a goodie bag, for which they are collecting donations from local businesses.
Kathy Brookshire is helping Moore organize the survivors’ events.
“I just think it is such a great cause,” she said. “I’ve had so many family members and friends who have passed away from cancer. I just hope we can find a cure.”
She had her own scare last year when she thought she might have breast cancer – it took doctors six months to confirm that she was negative for the disease.
“I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t have it,” she said. “But it also made me appreciate my life.”
Brookshire’s mother, Barbara, is also involved in Relay on the finance committee.
“My family has been touched with cancer, so it’s something I know,” she said. “I lost my father when he was 30 years old. I was 12 and watched him waste away to nothing.”
Brookshire, who will help to track the money collected by all the Relay teams in San Benito, said the luminaries are her favorite part of the event.
“That is so beautiful and so touching to see all the bags with names of people fighting cancer or in remission or who have been lost,” she said.
Each year, she and her family light a luminary in honor of those they have lost.
“One time I was telling a friend about Relay and she said she didn’t know anyone who had cancer,” Brookshire said. “A few hours later, when she stopped to think about it, she was associated with a number of people who had a battle with cancer.”
Relay for Life
Friday, July 31, 5:30 p.m. to Saturday, Aug. 1, 9 a.m.
Andy Hardin Stadium
Opening Ceremony: 5:30pm Friday
Survivors Lap: 5:30pm Friday
Luminaria Ceremony: 8pm Friday
Fight Back / Closing Ceremony: 9am Saturday
For more information or to participate, call 524-1331 or 801-4615.
To sign up online, visit www.cancer.org and search events for Hollister Relay for Life. Members can start a team online, join an existing team or register as a survivor. Donations can also be made to existing teams online.
