Time to form Relay teams
Published 7:25 pm Saturday, February 28, 2015
The 2015 Relay For Life is coming up in May, and teams already have begun forming for the event.
At Bennett’s Creek Park last year, Brayden Fusco, 5, rides atop the shoulders of Mark James, his great-uncle, whose sister survived cancer. The two were marching in the Survivors’ Lap of the Relay for Life.
About 42 teams, in fact, have registered, with more than 200 participants. They already have raised more than $31,000.
One of those teams is called “In Doug’s Memory.” Formed by Portsmouth-based MYMIC LLC, a modeling, analysis and simulation company, the team honors co-worker Doug Wright, who lost his battle with prostate cancer almost exactly a year prior to the date of this year’s Relay, an American Cancer Society fundraiser.
“We’re honoring him and his life,” said Coralie Draper, the team captain for the company’s team.
Draper said part of the company’s strategic plan is for employees to become more involved in the community.
“We decided we needed to be giving more back to the community,” Draper said.
Her dentist was running late one day, and she picked up a copy of Suffolk Living magazine in the waiting room and noticed an article on the upcoming Relay For Life. That’s when she decided it would be a good idea to get involved.
Even people in the company who didn’t know Wright before his illness forced him away from the office have gotten involved, Draper said.
Chelsea Peoples, community manager for Relay For Life, said the MYMIC team is a good example of the benefits of team organization.
“Coralie … is doing a great job motivating the team to fight back against this awful disease,” Peoples said.
Although folks can participate in Relay without being part of a team, teams can harness manpower to hold fundraisers, motivate and encourage one another and have their own campsites at the overnight event set for May 16-17. The top fundraising teams also are eligible for team awards.
‘I believe this is a great representation of the benefits of forming a team with Relay,” Peoples said.
This year’s event features a number of changes, most notably that it starts on a Saturday instead of a Friday and starts a little earlier in the evening — 4 p.m., instead of 6 or so.
But the familiar parts of Relay are still there — the survivor’s lap, luminaria ceremony, fun and remembrance.
For more information on how to be a part of Relay, visit www.relayforlife.org/suffolkva.
