The cynical optimist

I posted on here a year ago or so about my Relay For Life team, but I want to rehash some things and mesh two ideas together that I’ve had swirling around in my head for the last few weeks as I’ve done everything but write.

Every year, basically all year give or take a few months during the summer I am captaining a Relay For Life team which raises money for the American Cancer Society which helps fund cancer research and helps families with loved ones who have cancer with programs like the Hope Lodge program which provides people with free places to stay if travel to another city is required for the patients to get the best care and they offer free rides to treatments through their Road to Recovery program.

I have been raising money for the American Cancer Society for the past 7 years. Two of those years were on another team and the last five my family branched off and started our own team. We’ve done really well for ourselves despite our small team size (depending on the year 5-7 people) and I’m proud of everything we’ve raised, but with the COVID-19 pandemic raging on with no end in sight we are setting our goal low this year (while still hoping to blow it out of the waters.) We are aiming for a starting goal of 500 dollars.

In case anybody doesn’t know what Relay For Life is…it’s an all day event where people gather and honor those who are survivors, and remember those we have lost. We walk the track the entire event, and light up the night with Luminaria bags. We play games, we raise money, we laugh, we sing, we cry, we remember, we walk and we hope. It’s an amazing experience that you really have to see to believe. It is one of the best nights, and one of the things I look forward to each year.

Now, while raising money for Cancer research and honoring those we have lost and those who have survived is our main purpose of being there, each team has a theme, most teams are angel related, or specific movie related, our team is a little different in that regard, our team comes with a specific message, one that rings as true today as it did the day we created the team.

Our message is You are Not Alone. We understand that the fight against cancer can seem like a lonely one, but we want to show you that there are people out there that are cheering you on and will be willing to help if and when you need it.

My Relay for Life team uses the arts to send this message. Art has an unbelievable ability to get us to connect with people, see people as fully realized people and not just caricatures filled with our own biases and ideas. Art has helped me find hope in despair and connection when isolated. So, my team celebrates everything from Broadway to local theater groups, we celebrate music, dance, literature. We believe that the arts are integral to everything we do, we believe the arts can heal and bond people in a world were the individual struggle is often seen as the heroes struggle. Art can connect us and shape us. Art is proven to matter and proven to help us grow into better people.

I could sit here and link a bunch of studies that prove my point, but a lot of the people that will read this probably don’t need convincing, and for those of you who might, well the answers are out there.

Though there are numerous studies that show that the arts matter and can help us do better in school amid countless other things. The arts are constantly under attack, in my home state at least two school districts cut the entire art, music and PE programs due to budget cuts…when we need it most…we need to protect the arts.

And though my relay team is a small team and my town is a small town we hope that by pointing people to and educating people about the Arts we can create some more revenue to local art, local theater and we can create a better town. I don’t know if it works but I hope that we are doing a little good, spreading a little hope and love in a world that badly needs it.

If you want to donate to my Relay For Life team this is the link:

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/Friendsofthecure

If you want to learn more about the American Cancer Society and see if it’s something you want to donate to this is the link:

https://www.cancer.org/about-us.html

And if you are interested in a post about the arts and why the matter, along with some personal stories let me know in the comments or find me on Twitter!