By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
You can’t fight Mother Nature, and this year, organizers of the Ellis County Relay for Life, don’t have to worry about that.
For the first time, the 21st annual local fundraiser for the American Cancer Society will be held indoors–at Fort Hays State University Gross Memorial Coliseum. The event date has also changed–from early June to mid-fall–Saturday, Sept. 19.
“It’s kind of exciting–moving out to Gross Memorial Coliseum this year. It’s inside; it’s climate-controlled so you don’t even have to worry about being too warm or too cold,” said Kim Peach, ACS Relay for Life Community Manager.
For many years, the Hays Middle School (formerly Felten Middle School) outdoor track was the site of the Ellis Co. RFL with teams walking around the track for 12 continuous hours, from 7 p.m. Friday night to 7 a.m. Saturday morning. Teams set up their “campsites” around the track where many of them offered more games, keepsakes and foodstuffs for a cash donation to RFL. Threatening thunderstorms with lightning forced the Relay to end early a couple of times.
In recent years, the Relay was shortened, ending at midnight to make it easier for more people to participate.
Last year, the Relay moved to the Hays Mall parking lot, focusing on family-fun events throughout the evening as walkers wound through a makeshift track around the luminaries.
At GMC, there will still be ‘campsites,’ but “you won’t have to have them staked down,” Peach said with a smile, and it will still be family-oriented. And of course, there is a built-in track around the basketball arena for the luminaries and the team walkers. There will also be food vendors, she said.
Because the Relay will be indoors, Peach is planning for more participation from cancer survivors and their caregivers.
“We always do a personal invitation to the survivors which will be mailed any day, but we want the caregivers to know we haven’t forgotten about them.
“Sometimes it’s hard when you lose your loved one, you think that maybe you’re not a part of it any more. But you should be a part of it more than ever because we’re here to support you, too,” she said.
Whether you’re a caregiver or a cancer survivor, “there’s nothing like empathy to say you understand what someone is going through.”
Most of the money raised by the ACS Relay for Life national program goes towards scientific research.
“There’s been a lot of great improvements in the early detection of cancer,” Peach noted.
“A lot of people talk about there being more cancer, but the truth of the matter is, we’re detecting more cancers earlier and more people are surviving–and that’s huge. The more advances that we have and the better quality of treatments we have, people are having quality-of-life afterwards.”
KU Medical Center in Kansas City has received several ACS research grants.
“KU has a bunch of (research) going on right now. They just got new grants which have been renewed for this year. It’s exciting when you get grant money at home.”
“We do have services that come right through Hays Med (at the Dreiling/Schmidt Cancer Institute) to here but anybody anywhere is able to get any of the services that we offer by calling our 800 number at 1-800-ACS-2345. They can also go to www.cancer.org.
Teams are currently forming for the Ellis County Relay for Life. You can sign up at relayforlife.org/elliscoks or at relayforlife.org and type in the Hays zip code 67601.
The Relay will be held from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19 in FHSU GMC.
“It’s a great thing when everybody bands together, because cancer does affect us all,” she added.
For more information call Peach at (785) 639-3603.
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