Why do you support the Relay for Life?
The Staples-Motley Relay for Life will be held Friday, July 22, at the Motley Fairgrounds. Activities start at 5 p.m. and the opening ceremony starts at 7 p.m.
The Event Leadership Team has been working hard since January of this year to plan a great family event for our communities. We have been meeting each month to make plans and finalize the details. We have been focusing on how to make Relay an event both Staples and Motley can support and be proud of.
We get asked a lot why is the Relay in Motley? The Relay has spent many years in Staples and most of those years there have been many more hands to help organize and set up.
The cost of putting on an event like this can easily get out of control. We have found that what it costs for rentals became too much when many of those things are available to us for free at the fairgrounds. We felt they were too much for us to see come off the top of our hard earned fundraising dollars.
Relay is the same no matter where the location is. We’re here for the same reason as we were at the Staples Elementary track. We’re here to support cancer survivors and their caregivers, we’re here to remember our loved ones lost to this horrible disease and we’re here to FIGHT BACK!
The Event Leadership Team asks you to ask yourself what is your why for Relaying? Is your why to be in Staples or Motley? We hope it is not.
We hope your why is to support these two communities and the cancer stories and patients. We hope your why is to be involved in an event that helps the American Cancer Society save lives. We hope your why is to support those in our own communities who are fighting right now to save their lives or support those who have lost their loved ones.
We invite you all to come out and join us in doing just that. We have a lot of great things to offer such as the silent auction, with up to 100 items on our auction, all donated or hand- made by our teams.
We have food from 5-9 p.m., games and fun activities at each team’s campsite. We have a DJ this year who will keep the music going for us.
At 7 p.m. we will have a survivor story, a survivor lap and a caregivers lap for those who choose to participate. We will cheer you on all the way around the track.
Luminaries will be lit at dusk which is always an emotional part of the evening and one that has the most meaning to us. As we walk around lighting the candles in each bag looking at the names of hundreds of people in our communities who have been affected by cancer, it really gives a lot of perspective as to why we are here.
We walk all night to honor and remember those who are fighting or have lost their battle.
The Relay for Life is an event we hope our communities can rally around once again. We’re in the rebuilding stages and we want you to join us.
If you’re interested in helping us with the planning of the event or you want to have a team next year, please let us know.
The three of us are all cancer survivors and know the importance of Relay for Life. We have our own why’s. What’s your why?
