HERNDON — A rain shower late Friday afternoon couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the hundreds of community members determined to walk through the night around the Line Mountain High School’s athletic field track.

The eighth annual Line Mountain Relay for Life, which started at 3 p.m. Friday and ends at 3 p.m. today, is the first of 10 scheduled 24-hour relays in the Valley designed to raise money for the American Cancer Society’s fight against cancer.

Walkers at Line Mountain last year raised more than $101,000, chairwoman Joyce Howerter said.

The goal this year?

“$107,000,” she said.

Howerter, of Dornsife, is in her first year of directing the Line Mountain event.

“Most everyone here, even students at Line Mountain High School, are from families touched in some way by cancer,” she said. “This is a conscious-raising event. I truly believe that we are working towards a cure for cancer, and we’ll see it in our lifetime.”

Relay for Life celebrates cancer survivors as well as remembers those who have succumbed to the disease.

“I started volunteering a few years ago,” said assistant chairwoman Elaine Klock, of Coal Township. Her parents died from cancer, and her sister is a cancer survivor.

Amber Straub, of Herndon, was walking to honor her grandfather.

Robert and Shirly Lahr, also of Herndon, have had relatives with cancer.

“Some survived,” Shirley said. “Others didn’t. We’re not staying the entire night, but we’ll be back tomorrow.”



The beginnings

The relay’s guiding philosophy is that one person can make a difference in battling cancer.

It was Dr. Gordy Klatt, a colorectal surgeon in Tacoma, Wash., whose idea in the 1980s was to enhance the income of his local American Cancer Society office and to show support for his patients who had battled cancer.

He decided to personally raise money for the fight by doing something he enjoyed — running marathons.

In May 1985, Klatt spent 24 hours circling the track at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. He ran more than 83 miles.

That first year, nearly 300 of Klatt’s friends, family and patients watched as he ran and walked the course.

While circling the track, Klatt said he envisioned a 24-hour team relay event that could raise more money to fight cancer. Over the next few months, he pulled together a small committee to plan the first team relay event, known as the City of Destiny Classic 24-Hour Run Against Cancer.

In 1986, 19 teams took part in the first team relay event and raised $33,000. Today, Relay for Life is held in more than 4,600 communities in the United States and in 23 countries.



$20M raised annually

in Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, the relay events generate more than $20 million for the American Cancer Society.

Forty percent of the money goes toward the national American Cancer Society programs and services and 60 percent remains in the local community.

“We are still watching our friends and neighbors get diagnosed with cancer,” said Casey Fenton, an American Cancer Society community income development specialist for the Central Susquehanna Unit.

“We are still watching our loved ones die.”

In a recent speech to Relay for Life volunteers, Fenton said: “Some day, in a cancer-free future, you will look back and say, ‘When the fight was hardest, we fought. Our cause was bigger than sub prime mortgages or risky investment banking, and because we stood tall and stood together, we won.’”

“The economy requires volunteers to work harder, said Christie Badger, American Cancer Society regional income development director for the Central Region.

“But our local relays have responded by getting new and more people involved,” Badger said. “People are not selling lots of trinkets any more. Most are selling food items or things people can use or need.”

Keeping things fresh and exciting is another reason for changes in Relays For Life.

“Sometimes a change in one community becomes something we start to see nationally,” Badger said. “For example, the luminaria ceremony every one knows about actually started in one community and then spread to every relay in America.”



A successful model

Relay For Life is the most successful nonprofit fundraiser in the world, Badger said.

“There is no doubt other organizations have used our model to shape their own fundraisers,” she said. “The key to success is that we draw on the strength of our communities, from businesses to schools, doctors, churches, families and individuals to all get involved in Relay For Life.”

While communities hope the sun shines on their Relay For Life, rain does not dampen their spirits. “Not every day is bright and sunny for a cancer survivor and relayers are not going to be deterred by a little bit of rain,” Badger said. “The cause is too great to be affected by weather.”

Many people think you have to be finished with your treatment before you are considered a survivor.

“This is not so,” Badger said. “The minute you are diagnosed, you are a survivor.”

n Deb Brubaker lives in Selinsgrove. E-mail comments to dfbrubaker@hotmail.com.