Mini-relay fights cancer with $20k

BY JEFF HORVATH
Times-Shamrock Writer

Just about everyone has been affected by the disease of cancer, either as one who has personally battled the disease, or who have witnessed friends, family members, and co-workers struggle to overcome it.

Perhaps this is why, time and again, when given the opportunity to fight cancer, so many rise to the occasion.

When the Elk Lake Elementary School held its eleventh annual mini-Relay for Life on Saturday, Nov. 14, school organizers expected their fifth and sixth graders to do just that, but they never expected just how successful this year’s event would be when it came to raising money.

In only about one month 47 different Elk Lake fifth and sixth graders asked friends, family, and local businesses to donate to the cause of stomping out cancer, and, along with revenue collected from the sale

of remembrance cards, they were able to raise over $20,000 for the American Cancer Society.

“We have a very generous staff, a great community, and students who are go-getters,” said kindergarten teacher Lou Hicks, one of the relay’s organizers. “Everyone understands how important it is to fight this disease, and the students know that they can make a difference.”

And make a difference they have, and not only this year.

Last year’s mini-relay at Elk Lake brought in $14,000, and Hicks said that they’ve increased every year since the annual event started more than a decade ago.

“We didn’t know we were going to reach that $20,000 goal,” Hicks added, “and when we did there were tears of joy.”

During the event, which took place in the elementary gym, attendees participated in a luminaria ceremony, a staple of Relay for Life, with glow sticks. It was a sign of solidarity in support of those who are still fighting, and a way to honor those who those who have lost their lives to cancer.

Many fun activities took place throughout the morning, such as a competitive game of musical carpet squares, a communal chicken dance, and various faculty members, including Principal Marc Weisgold, getting hit in the face with whipped-cream pies.

The pies were an added incentive for the students to raise money, as the opportunity to pie-your-Principal doesn’t come around too often.

According to Weisgold, the lessons learned through participating in an event like the mini-Relay for Life are the kinds you can’t teach.

“Our kids are constantly being assessed in math, science, and reading, which are very important, but the kind of thing we did on Saturday will take them far in life, and it can’t be measured by a test,” Weisgold said. “These are the kinds of things that assess the heart, and our students are advanced in that area.”

What was by all accounts the most moving part of the relay, the survivors’ walk, in which both cancer survivors and attendees did laps around the gym, embodied the theme of Relay for Life: that we will all keep fighting together until cancer is cured.

More than 20 cancer survivors were on hand at the relay, and those who fought the disease valiantly yet still passed away as a result of cancer were in everyone’s thoughts.

“The survivors’ walk is really something,” said Hicks. “You have friends who have been coming every year since the beginning, and you can really feel the loss when someone hasn’t made it thought the year.”

“That’s why we keep fighting,” she added. “If we stop fighting then cancer wins.”

Elk Lake holds its annual mini-relay on the second Saturday of November.