VICTORY!!!

The 2008 Martin County Relay for Life has come to a close. And again this year, we improved on last year's total. Victory! I can't remember the exact number We raised more than $60,000 this year! I believe our goal was around $62,000. Last year, we blasted our goal by more than $12,000!!! That is HUGE! Especially for a county with communities as small as ours. Then we follow that up by raising $4,000 MORE this year! I am so proud of us. Goes to show you what people can do when they work together for a common goal.

Team #4...that's our team...finished with $2,596. Three years in a row, we've been a bronze fundraising team. That means that we've raised at least $2,000 each year. That is SO cool! In order to hit the silver level, we'd only have to raise another $404. $404! I told the girls that we can definitely do that. We had a few team members who weren't committed to fundraising this year. With their renewed commitment, we can definitely meet that next goal. So, look out Martin County. The Christ Renews His Parish Team is makin' the move.

I can't finish a blog entry about our Relay weekend without at least mentioning the adverse weather in the middle of the night. Some places is southern Indiana got up to 10 inches of rain over night. Lucky for us, it wasn't that bad here. But we had lots of wind, thunder and lightning, and heavy rains during the night. Around midnight, we secured our campsites and moved into the High School gym with our lawn chairs. The karaoke moved right along with us, from center stage to the gym. Everyone handled the move without incident. By 3am, we were back outside. (Personally, I went home to sleep at 2am, so I missed the transition back to the track.) Outside of the thunderstorms, it was hot, hot, hot, windy, VERY humid, and (did I mention?) hot!

There's just something very moving about a Relay weekend. Lots of work. Lots of fun. Some tears. Some laughter. Some pretty good exercise. Lots of goofing off and being silly. Lots of hugs. Great food! SO...MANY...PEOPLE touched by this horrible disease. There was a little girl, she couldn't have been 2 1/2, who was still growing her hair back after her cycle of chemo treatments. There were men and women in their 80's who have been in remission longer than my son has been on this planet. And so many people in between.

We CELEBRATED those who are living with and who have beat cancer. We REMEMBERED those who lost their battle with cancer. And we all made a pledge to FIGHT BACK! We can keep raising money for cancer research so that more and more treatments and cures are realized. But we can do MORE, but altering our lifestyles to do what we can to keep ourselves healthy. So many things that we do INCREASE our chances of getting cancer. We need to REDUCE those chances in any way we can. And that's what FIGHTING BACK is all about.