Suffolk’s Rockin’ Relay for Life has long been the premiere fundraising event for those wishing to help fight the battle against cancer. Robin Blanchard had a large part to play in making the event the success it has been through the years.

Blanchard, who died of renal cell carcinoma on Thursday, has been remembered for her generosity, for her cheerful spirit and for her ceaseless efforts to do for others, even as she fought her own painful battle with cancer.

She served for many years in leadership positions on the local Relay for Life effort, eventually taking the role of co-chair of the event in 2010. Her drive to participate in Relay was partly a result of the loving, caring person she was, but it also came from family experiences. Her father is a cancer survivor and now is fighting the disease again. Her maternal grandmother and her father-in-law both died of cancer.

But even when she was sick, she still cared about others, her family said. She worried about her husband watching her get weaker, and — perhaps knowing she would die before her mother’s birthday, which was Friday — she got her mother a birthday gift and had a friend deliver it. It was a necklace with several charms inside representing memories they shared.

Folks with that kind of indomitable spirit do not come around every day. Suffolk has lost a great treasure with the passing of Robin Blanchard.