HUNTLEY – A popular cliché about a person’s future dreams is, “find a cure for cancer.”
The truth is, our society is making significant progress toward finding a cure – one day, one fundraiser, one cancer survivor – at a time. On June 14, Sun Citians have a chance to support the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life fund-raising campaign. The public is invited, and encouraged, to attend.
Deicke Park in Huntley is the site, for the second straight year, of the 2013 local Relay for Life effort, which will be built around a theme of “party hard for the cure” and will last 12 hours overnight, with a Hawaiian flavor.
From 6 p.m. Friday, June 14, to 6 a.m. Saturday, June 15, 20 Huntley-area fund-raising teams with about 119 participants will set up overnight campsites, walk a track in relays, eat, play games, enjoy entertainment, luminaria ceremonies, a survivor dinner and walk, children’s games and face-painting. In the past year, the area teams have raised nearly $25,000.
Also planned will be a tacky tourist relay, coconut bowling (with pineapples or liter bottles), hula hoop circles, limbo contests, water balloon tosses, and baggo.
“This is fun and fund-raising,” Mary Lou Dorgan, chairperson of the Sun City Surfers, said. “You can come and eat, play games, socialize, and stay as long as you want.”
This writer is a cancer survivor (prostate, 2008). I benefited from first-rate, state-of-the-art care and I was lucky; the disease is now just a distant memory. There are millions just like me, surviving because of the support of so many fellow citizens. Almost everyone has been touched or impacted in one way or another by this disease.
