Building Hope for a Cure

On July 31st I had the privilege of participating in a American Cancer Society Relay for Life. Our team name was "Building Hope for a Cure". To start off our fundraising, Larry's work (Sutherland Lumber) made a very generous donation to our team. So we decided to base our team name around "building". Larry built a frame of a house that said the word "HOPE" inside to display at our camp.

We also had a lot of support from my mom's work (Swire Coca-Cola) in Salt Lake and Grand Junction. They donated water to our team. We even had a group drive up from Salt Lake to participate on our team.

We started the walk at 6pm. It started with a "Survivor's Walk" 9or as I call it...the purple shirts". I was honored to walk with a good friend, Tina Hart, who is a cancer survivor as well.

After that, all the teams started the 12 hour walk. I was amazed at how long some of the people actually stayed on the track. it meant so much to me to have their support, but to see them out there all hours of the night really touched my heart.

At around 9pm there was a Luminaria Ceremony where bags were purchased and designed to honor or in memory of those touched by cancer. Lauren was our official bag decorator. She made a very cute bag for me. She also made a bag for my Dad (Grandpa Kelly) and Larry's Grandma (GG). She also decorated a couple of bags for other friends. One of the bags was for my friend Michelle, who has a friend that lost her sweet little boy to cancer last year. It was so touching as the names were read and the bags were lit to light the track throughout the evening.

I could not have asked for a better group to participate with, not to mention all of the many, many donations made to my team by wonderful friends and family. It does go to a wonderful cause..the cure for cancer. Something I plan to see in my lifetime!