When a disease like cancer arrives in your life, the threat is personal, scary, and isolating. The need for information, expertise, and support is acute, as is the need to marshal forces to meet the challenges ahead. Ideally, as the medical community
When a disease like cancer arrives in your life, the threat is personal, scary, and isolating. The need for information, expertise, and support is acute, as is the need to marshal forces to meet the challenges ahead. Ideally, as the medical community intervenes, a social network of families and friends convenes. Every case of cancer should become a personal issue for each of us because no community and no family is immune. And no cancer victim should feel isolated in the battle.
This is the belief that annually inspires hundreds of people to participate in Newtownâs Relay For Life at the Fairfield Hills campus in front of the Newtown Youth Academy. The event begins on Friday, June 1, this year and continues through the night.
In Newtown we gather in large crowds to celebrate the community on Labor Day and the holidays in early December. This newer town tradition, however, celebrates nothing less than life itself with a sequence of events that are at once joyous and solemn. Relay events include the inspiring Survivorsâ Lap around the relay course celebrating victories in the fight against cancer; the poignant Luminaria Ceremony to remember those who confronted this disease so valiantly and with such courage; and the Fight Back Ceremony, where participants make a personal commitment to do something to thwart cancer, whether it is a simple screening test, or a not-so-simple effort to quit smoking.
While it is the goal of the Newtown Relay to raise $208,000 this year for the American Cancer Society with scores of teams (about 425 people) completing sponsored laps around the prescribed course, the event stands as an important reminder that every person has a stake in this effort and every person can make a difference. Organizers have invited the entire community to come out Friday evening to cheer the teams on. They are expecting about 1,000 people to accept that invitation to Newtownâs celebration of life. It would be nice, however, if the community responded in numbers far above their wildest expectations. More information on the Relay For Life, including a schedule of events, appears on page A-16 this week.