Bigfork Relay for Life coming up July 18-19
By JORDAN DAWSON / Bigfork Eagle
Cancer doesn't sleep, and next Friday night, July 18, neither will 200 to 300 Bigfork residents as they take turns making their way around the Bigfork High School track for the Fourth Annual Relay for Life.
The relay gets started at 5 p.m. with a survivors' dinner catered by Great Northern Foods and Kravings.
Live music starts at 5:30 p.m. and goes past midnight. The opening ceremonies begin at 6 p.m. and are followed by the first lap of the relay completed by cancer survivors. Then the teams will be introduced and will walk the second lap together. After that, teams are free to walk in any order that they want, but they are supposed to have one team member on the track at all times throughout the 14 hour relay.
There are 22 teams signed up, each with 10-15 people, and people can continue to sign up until the beginning of the relay. Last year there were 29 teams and event organizers are hoping to top that with 32 teams this year. They hope that the community will raise $83,000 to top last year's amount of $81,000. So far there has been nearly $10,000 raised, but the majority of the money will not be turned in until next week and money from the relay and other events can continue to come in through August. In past years there have been three corporate sponsors who donate a total of about $5,000 and they have not done so this year.
Most of the money raised goes to the American Cancer Society to fund grants for cancer research. The rest of the money goes to programs that improve the quality of life for people battling cancer.
Debbie Ingram, Relay for Life Event Chair, said that all of the numbers are down this year for the Bigfork relay, as well as other area relays. There are less people raising less money. She credits this to the bad economy.
"Our team numbers are down," Ingram said. "Our survivors numbers are down. And that's kind of disappointing because it's an event celebrating survivors. So if there are any survivors who haven't signed up yet, I encourage them to do so."
Last year 90 survivors participated in Bigfork's Relay for Life, and this year only 40 have signed up.
While participants are making their way around the track there will be live music, massage therapy, bingo, a jump castle for the kids and lots of food donated by local restaurants. The rest of the walkers will be served dinner from 7 to 9 p.m., at midnight there will be pizza and in the morning a cold breakfast will be served.
Live music will be performed by Left Over Biscuits, Spur of the Moment, The Bad Larrys and others.
At 10:30 p.m. there will be a luminary ceremony to honor people that have either died from cancer or are currently going through cancer treatment. Luminaries are available for purchase at all of the banks in Bigfork for a suggested cost of $10. The names of the people that the luminarias are purchased for will be read at the opening ceremony and the names will also be shown on a screen during the luminary ceremony. People purchasing luminaries may decorate them however they choose, or the Relay for Life committee will do it for them.
Sunday morning from 7:30 to 8 a.m. will be the closing ceremonies. There will be prizes given out to participants for such categories as most money raised, most laps and best decorated site. This year's theme is western so event organizers hope that teams will decorate accordingly.
"Relay for Life brings so many people together," Ingram said. "We're all there for a common goal and once it is all set up it is a lot of fun."
More information about donating, participating and volunteering is available by calling Debbie Ingram at 837-6280.