Too many victims, too many dead, maimed and broken on the rack of cancer.
Tonya Clark, chairperson of the relay organizing committee of the Auburn Cancer Relay for Life, is all about delivering the knock-out blow to the dreaded disease.
And she is convinced that the combined might of thousands of feet can really stomp its lights out.
“Perhaps next year at this time, we can gather for another reason, but not because we are still fighting cancer,” Clark said during opening ceremonies of the 18-hour, Friday-to-Saturday event at Auburn Memorial Stadium:
Cancer survivors, caretakers and 68 teams — 840 registered walkers in all — took part, with several hundred more supporters joining in. The moving luminaria, or remembrance ceremony, began at 10 p.m. last Friday, each lit candle in the bags resting on a can of food, 925 pounds in all destined for the Auburn Food Bank.
All told, the walkers raised a tidy $141,000 for the fight.
“It was utterly amazing,” Clark said.
The American Cancer Society uses the money to help with advocacy, research, and to provide resources for cancer patients.
Garrett Light, an Auburn Mountainview High School senior, has walked in the event for 10 years to honor his late father, Gary, who died of colon cancer in 2001. After their dad’s death, Garrett’s two older sisters started a team, Kids that Love Gary. Both girls were team captains in high school, a responsibility that now rests on Garrett’s shoulders.
“I am out here to honor my father, friends of my family, and people I know who acquired cancer, and because someday I hope they’ll get rid of this horrible disease,” Light said. “That’s why I fight. I really believe in it. Our team has raised about $8,000. People are good in this community. They fight the good fight.”
On March 1, 2010, Garret himself was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma, a rare cancerous tumor, in one of his tibia. After surgery and months of chemotherapy, he has been in remission since Oct. 19.
“I am back doing the same things,” Light said. “I have a limp because they took out my entire tibia during surgery, and they put in a 16-year old’s tibia and a titanium rod all the way down. I can’t run or anything right now, but one day I hope to.”
Laurie Marino is a member of the organizing committee. She and her husband Tom, a captain with the Valley Regional Fire Authority, got involved when their son, Brent, was diagnosed with bone cancer at age 10 and wanted to walk the track as a survivor.
“This started out mattering because it was important to Brent to see himself as a survivor,” Marino said. “The first year he did it, that day he’d been OK’d to run, which he hadn’t been able to do for five years. That was pretty hard for a child. That first lap he took, he ran it and it was the first time he’d run in five years. It was very moving for all of us. He comes back every year. It’s a way for him to say, ‘I’m still here'”
Marino knows, without a shadow of doubt, that the money raised matters.
“Ten years before Brent was diagnosed, his survival rate with his type of cancer was 10 percent. Ten years later when he was diagnosed, it was 85 percent. We knew it was because of this kind of thing. Today he lives in Enumclaw, is 28 years old and getting on with his life.”
Individuals and teams still can donate to the cause. To learn more, please visit www.auburnrelay.com.
