Tents to Sprout in Park for 24-Hour Cancer “Relay for Life”

Don't be surprised if you see tents popping up in Cerrito Vista Park Saturday. It's only for one night and it's for a good cause — the American Cancer Society’s signature fundraising event, Relay for Life, an upbeat and uplifting gathering with a serious focus.

Begun in 1985 when Dr. Gordy Klatt of Tacoma, WA, ran and walked for 24 hours around a stadium track, Relay for Life has become an international event or, more accurately, series of events. Local relays are set up at locations such as a high school, as was done the first five years in El Cerrito, or a park, as this year’s El Cerrito event will be.

The relays still go for 24 hours — El Cerrito’s will be from 10 a.m. this Saturday  to 10 a.m. Sunday — but have become a team event. Each team, with a minimum of eight members, is to have someone walking or running around the track at all times.

El Cerrito’s first Relay for Life was June 24-25, 2000, an event that got a big boost from then-Councilwoman Kathie Perka. Perka helped draw attention to the event and fielded a team of more than 20 people that included other council members, city staff and friends. Her team raised about $5,200 of the more than $16,000 raised by the event.

The annual event continued at El Cerrito High until it was displaced by construction of a new campus. One of the participants in two of those early El Cerrito relays was Tamiko Escalante, then a student at the high school. Escalante also participated in a Relay for Life while away at college in Boston.

When the event , with a new home at Cerrito Vista Park, organizers began calling past participants and eventually enlisted Escalante to serve as event coordinator, a role she is taking on this year as well.

Although the event has already raised $22,000, surpassing last year’s $15,500, Escalante said the event is really about cancer survivors and people undergoing treatment, and the family members and friends who are their caregivers and supporters.

An experience with a family friend made her realize that it isn’t just the patient who is affected but that person's family and friends as well. The Relay for Life, she said, lets people know “it’s OK to talk about this experience. It allows people in the community to share their pain, and also their joy when cancer is in remission.”

At the same time, she said, it is a very fun event, with music, games and competitions.

Those interested in signing up a team or joining an existing one can do so online through Friday or at the event Saturday, with registration beginning at 8:30 a.m. Each participant is asked to raise $100 in contributions.

Thirteen teams with a total of 108 participants had signed up as of Monday.

Brief speeches are planned before Saturday’s 10 a.m. start. Survivors are invited to take the first lap.

Two bands will perform, The Vibe Project from noon to 1 p.m. and En Vivo from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and there will be a Zumba dance activity from 1 to 1:30 p.m.

One of the most moving parts of the event is the lighting of the luminaria as the sun goes down. For a donation of $10 or more, people can have a luminaria, made by placing a light stick in a white paper bag, lit in honor a cancer survivor or someone in treatment or who was lost to cancer. The luminaria are placed around the track and also used to spell out the word “Hope.”  Luminaria sign-ups may be done online or the day of the event. Escalante said donors sometimes bring photographs of the people they are honoring to attach to the luminaria.

The teams will jointly hold a silent auction during the event as well as each having its own fundraising activity, such as a cake walk, bake sale, or arts and crafts activity. Related fund-raisers were also held leading up to the event.

Each team selects a theme and related cancer-prevention message as a basis for decorating its area, team baton and costumes, and at 11 p.m. each team will send a representative to a fashion competition.

Escalante’s team, for example, has an aloha theme with a skin cancer prevention message.

Awards — such as those for best campsite decoration, most spirited, and top fundraising individual and team — are given during the closing ceremony, which will begin about 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

To keep up to date on event plans, visit the El Cerrito Relay for Life Facebook page.