Lace Up Your Shoes and Join the Relay for Life

Kick your heals up, it's time for the Watsonville High School for the Relay for Life event, a 24-hour walk that hopes to bring awareness and raise funds for the American Cancer Association as well as other local programs that help those suffering from cancer.

Music, food and entertainment for children will be provided. There will be booths for local businesses, independent teams and other organizations who plan to sell products and donate their proceeds. 

“Three team members in our office have succumbed to cancer so that is a motivating factor for us” said James Parker, facility team leader for the Global Purchasing Office of Whole Foods Market. The Whole Foods Market booth will be along the lines of a farmers market, selling donated fresh food products from community vendors at “very good prices,” said Parker. Whole Foods has been successful with this strategy and has managed to donate close to $20,000 in the past two Relay for Life events in 2010 and 2009.

“Party Lite is a national American Cancer Association and we are here to support,” said Carol Gomez, the team captain for Party Lite. Her booth will be selling Party Lite products and raffling Party Lite  gift baskets, as well as selling children’s toys. “We are going to raise money and have a good time,” said Gomez.

The booths are also a team and will always have a member walking-- with hourly switch offs. They also have tents near their booths were they will be able to rest and keep warm, when needed.

“We have total of 30 teams and there must be at least one team member at the track through out the 24 hours,” said Esther Morillo, executive assistant to the chairman of the Relay for Life event.

Morillo said the walk is an important symbolic aspect for those involved with the relay tomorrow. “In our minds we re are thinking of what a cancer patient would have to endure,” says Morillo.

These hot sweats of the day and trembling that comes with a cold night are meant to show the participants some of the pain that cancer patients face when they go through chemotherapy and radiation.

“We just do it for 24 hours can you imagine what a cancer patient must go through in those long sessions of a week or so?”