Monday, March 4, 2013

The American Cancer Society-Relay For Life 2013

 One of the causes that our family is passionate about is the cure for cancer. Since 2000 our family has been participating with our local chapter of The American Cancer Society's Relay For Life. Our journey with the society started out when my husband was about 22 years old. In April of 2000 he saw the lights on at the Bishop, Texas high school football field and walked over to see what was going on. While there he found his old high school buddies and they told him what they were doing and why it was important for them to take part in The Relay.
 By January of 2001 my uncle Thomas Heredia was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This devastated my side of the family. The cancer had forced our family to argue about treatments, who would be the caregivers, what food to eat and where my uncle would live. No one in my family knew what to do.
 Around April of the same year my husband was asked by his friend if he and his band would  perform at the Relay For Life around 3 a.m. That year the Relay had been moved to Naval Air Station in Kingville, Texas. This was to keep everyone awake and bring something different to the event. Basically they crashed the event. It was a sight to see a group of  kids carrying an arm load of band equipment without anyone really knowing why they were there.
Freakstarr circa 2000
They played and was asked to come back the next year.

Shortly after that Relay For Life event my uncle had passed away from prostate cancer.

By 2002 Gary and I were married and we took a 2 year break from The Relay For Life but I think God had other plans for us.

In 2004 we were introduced to Silver Chapa who was the committee chair that year. He wanted someone to document the event. I was taking television classes at the time and volunteer to do it. So I asked some of my classmates to help me and we created a video for the event.
The night of Relay we interviewed all kinds of people and ask them why they participated. One of the things that we learned is that The Relay is not really a running Relay. Yes, people do walk all night but really they were there to show there support that cancer never sleeps so why should they. It was truly an eye opening experience. As we interviewed more people most of them had raised thousands of dollars to donate to The American Cancer Society and even more people were learning the risk factors that may cause certain types of cancer. After those interviews we decided to help with the Relay For Life in any way we could.
The last 8 years our family have taken on different roles as part of The Relay For Life. We have been team members, team captains, videotape producers and now serve as committee members.

This year we are asking for your help with our fight against cancer. Please donate to our family page at  http://main.acsevents.org/goto/SouthTexasEulenfeld

For more information please visit  www.relayforlife.org

1 comment:

CaninesCouture said...

Cancer in all of its forms is so awful. It's great you're taking action. :)

xoxo,

Jules of Canines & Couture
www.caninesandcouture.com