Dates Set for 2013 Relay For Life of Stillwater; Kickoff Meeting is April 16

The words celebrate, remember and fight back are the words used by the American Cancer Society as part of their campaign to raise awareness. Each of these words on its own is very powerful.

This year’s Relay For Life will be held on Friday, Aug 2 – Saturday Aug. 3 at Stillwater Area High School. This year as we celebrate the American Cancer Society’s 100th birthday we also celebrate our 19th Relay For Life.

If you are interested in finding out more about our Relay For Life please come to our Kick Off meeting on April 16th at 6:30pm at the Knights of Columbus Hall – 1910 So Greeley St. Stillwater

Celebrate – each day for a cancer survivor is a celebration.

One of Relay’s goals is to celebrate our survivors. We do this with the survivor lap that starts our Relay, the survivor reception and our luminary lighting ceremony where we honor survivors and those who have lost their battle.

I am sure you have all seen the commercials from the American Cancer Society encouraging everyone to Celebrate More Birthdays. That is the goal of each and every cancer survivor and American Cancer Society volunteer.

We raise money to fund research, to find a cure so each person diagnosed with cancer will have the opportunity to live a long healthy life.  One can never have too many birthdays.

We also celebrate our Caregivers. Cancer survivors will attest that without the support of the caregiver their battle would have been impossible.

Remember – the luminary lighting ceremony allows us to silently honor those who have lost their battle. During the relay we read the names of our loved ones, these are called memory laps. We also honor our caretakers. Sometimes it is easy for people to forget about the people in the background who without asking are there for the cancer patient. Sometime we just take them for granted but we do honor you.

Fight Back – every time you go to the doctor for preventive visits (mammograms, prostate checks, and colonoscopy) you are fighting back through early detection. Every time we raise money for research we are fighting back.

We are planning many exciting things this year for our Relay but we need your help.

We will be voting at our kick off meeting as to how long our event will be this year. 18 hours, 20 hours or 24 hours. If you want your voice to be heard you please attend the kick off meeting. We are also looking for volunteers to help us. We have many volunteer opportunities that need to be filled and we can really use your help.

If you are interested in finding out more about our Relay For Life please come to our Kick Off meeting on April 16th at 6:30pm at the Knights of Columbus Hall – 1910 So Greeley St. Stillwater. For more information please contact Lois Raboin at 612-210-9948 or go to our web site at www.relayforlife.org/stillwatermn.

--Lois Raboin, Stillwater Relay for Life