The Mckean County Relay for Life has been raising money to fight back against cancer nationwide for 20 years, earning more than $2 million in the process. This year’s event had a wide range of entertainment and activities that helped bring in enough people and donations to exceed the donation goal.
The theme for this year’s event was “Family Fun Night,” with most of the events being geared towards involving the entire family. The relay was held at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
Shane Launer, specialist for the American Cancer Society, said 17 teams participated this year, each decorating their sites in a unique way in hopes to win the best decorated team award. This year’s winner was the Team “Positive ‘Addy’ Tude,” a team that walked in honor of Addy Clark and in memory of Gary Howard and Helen Johnson.
With the help of each team, Launer said more than $67,000 has been raised so far, exceeding the $63,000 donation goal.
“This is the first time we’ve exceeded our goal in two years, and we’ve still got donations coming, which we couldn’t be any more thankful for,” Launer said.
The weather fought with the relayers quite a bit, with rain and wind scattered throughout the weekend, but the volunteers carried on through the event.
“We figured the familiar faces would carry on through the rain, but we were happily surprised to see a lot of the newer faces carrying on with the relay despite the weather,” Launer said. With the family centered theme, there were people of all ages involved in this year’s relay.
Rosa Macilvaine was head of entertainment this year, providing live music by local groups such as Dark Water Duo, Vapor and performances by Shane Rimer, Taylor Brinker and the Studio B Dancers.
Due to the rainy weather on Friday, the Luminaria event scheduled to take place at 8 p.m. was moved to 11 a.m. Saturday.
“We usually do the Luminaria at night, but it would have been difficult with the rain. Thankfully the weather cleared up the next day,” Macilvaine said.
The prince and princess of the royal court was announced at 3 p.m. on Saturday, with the winners being Stefan Darr as prince and Jocelyn Ita as princess.
The contestants for this year’s Miss Relay — men who dressed as women and solicited cash donations while taking a lap around the loop, were “Michelle O’Bama” and “Sally Tutu Huckleberry.”
In contrast to other relays around the country, which are usually only held for 12 hours, the McKean County Relay for Life goes on for 24 hours.
“We find it important to go the full day, symbolizing the 24-hour a day fight those with cancer endure,” Launer said.
The event committee is ready to begin planning for next year, with hopes of new teams joining the relay.
“We know that a lot of students stay over the summer at the university where we have the relay. We’re hoping we could get them to form a team or two next year,” Launer said.
The Potter County Relay for Life took place over the weekend as well, raising approximately $22,500 towards this year’s $30,000 donation goal, said Nancy Weber, a representative of the Potter County Relay for Life.
