The cynical optimist

We are once again, as of me writing this, less than 2 weeks away from the 2022 edition of my local Relay For Life and for the first time since the pandemic began we are returning to a two day event, and I’m excited beyond belief for what this year might bring.

For any of you who might not know, Relay For Life is a fundraising event that raises money for the American Cancer Society, which in turn uses that money for cancer research as well as helping out people who have cancer and their families through projects like the Hope Lodge which places families in a free home to stay when their best treatment option is in a state that is not their own.

During the Relay For Life event, all of the teams gather at a track, usually a local high school and walk the track for the length of the event. Ours as I mentioned is back to a two day event, we begin walking at noon on the first day and somebody from our team must be on the track at all times, until 8 am the next morning. Along the track the teams set up tents and try to raise as much money as we can, some teams sell food, others play games, it’s all dependent on what the team wants to do.

And this is the section I want to spend most of my time on. A few days ago I posted a poll on my twitter asking if people knew what the Relay For Life was and to my surprise 70% of the responses were yes. I was initially going to spend most of this post talking about what the Relay For Life is to get people on board with donating, however, since most of you already know what it is, I’m going to focus the rest of this post on what it is my team does.

Our team is called “Friends of the Cure.” And while we are raising money to hopefully one day bring an end to cancer, we also take the opportunity to point people in the direction of the arts. Local, global, whatever kind of art you can think of…

Growing up I was heavily involved in the arts. I took dance lessons starting at 5 years old, I played the violin and the trumpet, I read every book that I could get my hands on, music was the soundtrack to my life, I connected and understood the world better when viewed through the lens of music. My sister got involved in theater in her high school and through going to her performances I became a fan of musicals and theater in general so much so that when I got the chance to join the theater company at my high school I jumped at the chance and some of my best memories were made in the auditorium after school. I can honestly say the arts have gotten me through some of the hardest times of my life, every time I’ve been up against adversity I’ve turned to the arts and it has never failed to see me through.

However, the arts are constantly overlooked, they are the first thing cut from schools when the budget gets a little tight and it is heartbreaking to think of the kids who will lose out on the opportunity to know the power of the arts.
Art has taught me the power of community and that when we come together we can do amazing things. I have never been alone because I can find bits of me in a song lyric, or a movie, or a play, or a painting.

And that feeling of community is exactly what we are hoping to point the people that come to our tent to. We are hoping to inspire them to visit their local theater shows, their local art galleries, concerts, to actively seek out art in their lives and to get them to understand that there is power and community in those things, there is worth in those things they are just frivolous and mindless, but they can heal and they can help people.

One of the things we offer at our tent is a memorial playbill which is a playbill that we have printed out from a variety of shows throughout the years and you sign it with the name of the person you want to remember and walk a lap around the track in their honor, or if you can’t walk it one of our team members walks it for you and then we display in on a board at our tent for the rest of the event. We are aiming to make those who are fighting cancer or we have lost to cancer the star of the show.

Relay For Life is a remarkable event that makes me cry every year, it’s a lot of hard work and sometimes everything seems to go wrong, tempers can flare, but as we watch the survivors lap which seems to grow every year, or as we watch the Luminaria ceremony, or as we sit in the silence of the early morning hours watching the sun rise on the next day you can feel that hope of a life where there is no cancer.

You can learn more about the Relay for life Here

And if you are compelled to donate you can here : Donation Link