Relay For Life and the American Cancer Society came together on Friday night at the Athens SportsPlex to commemorate their continuous fight against cancer by honoring the lives of those who have been affected by disease in the area.
“Cancer doesn’t care if you’re young, old, what race you are or even what gender you are,” Holly Hollman, the team captain for Limestone County’s Relay For Life organization, said. “It is an evil disease that will attack anybody, and tonight this community has come together to fight back against it.”
The event, which featured multiple vendors from throughout the county, began with a survivor dinner in the evening that rolled into a pink-carpet walk for all of the survivors to be honored.
Cherry Hammonds, the community development manager for the American Cancer Society who helped set up the event, is also a cancer survivor who has been in remission for the past two years after her battle against melanoma.
“This is a culmination of a year’s worth of work for all of us,” Hammonds said. “Tonight is the night we all really cherish and look forward to each year, getting to see the smiles on the survivors’ faces makes what we do worth it.”
As the survivors walked, and sometimes even danced their way down the pink carpet they were greeted by Mayor Ronnie Marks and city councilman Chris Seibert, who awarded gold “survivor” medals to each person.
“This is really a fantastic event, and this is really what makes Athens and Limestone County so great, because we care about our people,” Marks said. “I don’t know a single family that hasn’t been touched by cancer in some kind of way, and we are here to show our support in fighting this horrible disease.”
Seibert reflected the same sentiment of Marks, talking about how cancer has struck his family and why it is so for the community important to show up to events like these.
“I lost my mother and father-in-law to cancer, but I don’t think anybody out here hasn’t lost someone to this disease,” Seibert said. “We have to be here, we have to fight cancer together and anytime we can do that we should.”
After the pink-carpet walk that featured dozens of survivors, members from the Relay For Life team were joined by eventgoers and other survivors to walk laps around the man-made track that was lined with luminaries that featured the names of people who lost their battle with cancer.
Later in the evening, well after the sun went down, the event’s Luminaria ceremony commenced. The ceremony offered a chance for reflection of the lives that have been lost as they lit up the paper bags.
Marcia Day, a 14-year breast cancer survivor, put into perspective why this day is so important for families and friends to honor those who have not only lived but those who have also succumbed to the disease.
“It is integral for us to raise awareness of cancer to everyone we can, and we can use those we have lost as examples” Day said. “We have newer technology and more ways to detect cancer at early stages, so we need to encourage everybody to get a checkup before it is too late.”