Relay for Life 2014

On Friday night, myself and over 1,000 of my closest friends came together for our local Relay for Life event!

This year’s theme was “Finish the Fight” and was my first official year to participate on the planning committee. Despite a few last minute hiccups (that no one would know about unless they were told), it all came together for a beautiful event!

Relay for Life is not a race – it’s an overnight fundraising event for the American Cancer Society. Most of these events are held around a track and teams are encouraged to have a team member walking the track all night long (hence the “relay” part of it).

Here’s recaps of previous years:

• Relay for Life 2011
• Relay for Life 2012
• Relay for Life 2013
• Relay for Life of Terrebonne Parish 2014

The reason we continue to fight – for current and future survivors – they were given the honor of walking the opening lap.

Our team joined in for the Caregiver and Team laps.

See that guy in my hand? That’s Todd…aka #FlatTodd.

Todd is our Team Captain (and boss) and has been at every Relay for Life event for the past 15+ years. (Everyone knows Todd.) His daughter graduated from LSU this year ON Relay night, so he was unable to make the event (obviously). Our chair had the idea to make a “Flat Todd” and it all went from there. He was a big hit!!

Our tent decorations were from a 1st Birthday party circus theme – I edited them to fit our 2014 theme, “Birthdays Under the Big Top”.  That tiger once had a “1” on his hat!

Coworkers

My parents :0)

I loved walking around, seeing all of the positive and uplifting signs/banners!

Perhaps the most touching moment of any Relay event is the luminaria ceremony.

Bags created in honor or memory of a loved one were placed all around the track to form a giant circle of hope. The bags were filled with sand and a tea light.

This was my Grandfather’s bag – he passed away from lung cancer in 2000. He’s also part of the reason I began working in Oncology.

This bag brought me to tears. On the front was a photo of a young mom with two kids – stories like this just break my heart.

After the luminaria ceremony, I walked around and enjoyed a little dessert! A local team created these “birthday cake popcorn balls” and they were delicious!

This team’s tent was my favorite – they created a “coffee house” feel and actually sold coffee all night long!

Love him! :0)

Reunited! This is Ariel, the old Relay staffer for our area and Katie who has now been promoted as “top dog” in the state – not only Louisiana but Arkansas, too! I got friends in high places! (Kidding….)

Our Relay has a carnival-like atmosphere which is typical for a Louisiana event and draws a large crowd! A graduation was held at the same location (inside) and after graduation, family and friends came through the event and ate dinner. I haven’t heard if we reached goal yet, but I know we had a lot of teams who worked hard to fundraise for ACS!

The 2014 event chair (Erin – who is also a survivor…whoop!) put endless hours of work into making sure our Relay was a success….same to Rosa, our new area staff! Congrats to everyone on such an amazing event!

Are you involved with a non-profit? What are your big fundraising events?