Belleville Relay for Life’s theme is Storybook Land

By Bevan Hamilton

BELLEVILLE – Relay for Life organizers want you to dust off your fairy-tale costumes for the kickoff event at the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre on Saturday.

For the second year in a row, the relay – a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society – will have a theme. This year’s theme is Storybook Land.

“The Storybook theme is a chance for people to dress up and share their story. It’s a family event and this makes it fun,” fundraising co-ordinator Brad Warner said.

Relay For Life is a non-competitive, 12-hour overnight fundraising event. Teams of 10 to 15 people fundraise individually and as a team for cancer research and support for those who are facing cancer. At the relay, teams gather with cancer survivors at their local track and take turns walking laps all night.
Saturday’s kickoff, which will run from 2 to 4 p.m., is an awareness and team signup event in preparation for the main Relay for Life event, which will be at Loyalist College on June 20.

Warner said the kickoff will include a mini-relay to inform people of what is involved. Participants who register at the kickoff will receive a free Wellness Centre day pass, which includes skating, swimming and the gym, he said.

Amy Doyle, the manager of the Hastings unit of the Canadian Cancer Society, said people participate for a variety of reasons, but everyone involved in the relay has been touched by cancer somehow.

That is true of Jennifer Coleman. She has participated in the relay in 10 of the past 11 years. It all started in 2004 when she and her husband joined a friend’s team after her husband lost his dad to cancer. Coleman also lost her stepdad to cancer. The relay took on a whole new meaning when Coleman became a cancer survivor herself in 2009. She said that’s part of why it’s important to Belleville.

“It helps show people they are not alone in their fight. As a survivor, I know what it’s like to feel that way,” she said. “I’m always awed by the experience. The community support is incredible.”

Christine McArthur has a similar story. She formed a team at the first Belleville relay in 2000 to support a friend with breast cancer, and has been involved ever since.

“I wanted to feel like I was doing something when we were all feeling so helpless,” she said.

Belleville’s fundraising goal is $235,000, the same as last year. Warner said they are aiming for 80 teams this year, which would be a slight increase over 2013. There are currently 24 teams registered, made up of 205 participants.

Relay for Life was started in Washington State in 1985 and came to Canada in 1999. Canadians raised $85,000 that first year, but that number reached $46.5 million last year.