ShawneeDispatch.com

With their pink boxing gloves, members of the Friends for a Cure team at the Shawnee/Lenexa Relay for Life were out to fight a foe much worse than Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago and Tommy Gunn.

To match the 1980s’ theme for this year’s event raising funds for the American Cancer Society, the team combined the three “Rocky” movies that came out in that decade with the fight against breast cancer, sporting shirts that read “Fight like a girl.” Their pink boxing ring in front of their tent at the all-night event helped them win an award for best decorated campsite.

Lisa Walsh, team captain, said it was all part of the experience of Relay for Life — walking a track all night to symbolize the cancer survivor’s fight against the disease, from the dusk of diagnosis, through the dark hours of treatment, to the sunrise of life after cancer.

“It’s one of those things where you just kind of have to experience it to understand the significance behind it,” Walsh said. “That’s one of the things that I like about it so much.”

Walsh first participated in a relay in Lawrence five or six years ago with a friend who had had non-Hodgkins lymphoma in her 20s and then was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 40s.

Traveling to Lawrence made it hard to participate annually, so last year when Walsh discovered the Shawnee/ Lenexa relay, she decided to form her own team in honor of her friend, as well as others she knew who were fighting cancer.

“She really inspired me to get out and fight for other people because she was such a fighter herself,” Walsh said.

The Friends for a Cure team consists largely of mothers of Benninghoven Elementary School students, including one breast cancer survivor. Even the team-members’ children got into the effort for the team’s second year.

“The kids raised $1,500 themselves,” Walsh said. “They work hard, too, and get into the spirit of it.”

With no overnight storms this year, event co-chairs Lori Vielhauer and Candace Walkup said the relay’s second year at Shawnee’s Swarner Park went off without a hitch.

“I was extremely happy with everything, especially with the economy the way it is,” Vielhauer said. “I was ecstatic with our totals.”

The total amount raised so far at this year’s event is $92,816.45 with numbers still coming in, and there were 38 teams compared to last year’s 37. Vielhauer said the team increase was more significant considering four of the teams from last year condensed into one team.

The top five fundraising teams were: Gear For Sports, $12,280.11; The Flamin’ Hotties, $11,789; Wilms Warriors, $8,756.73; Team Rieke, $7,095.26; and The Party Poopers, $6,241.87.

Walsh, who has joined the organizing committee for next year’s event, said experiencing the event is key, so she sees the event growing in the future as more and more participate in the fight against cancer.

“The next morning, a couple of (my team members) looked at me and said ‘Ah, I get what you were talking about now,’” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever walked in an event where people are sending me thank you notes afterwards… It’s just one of those events, where if you can get them out there and get them to experience it, you know they’ll be there again next year.”

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