By Lori Bradish
It usually begins with a personal experience – a parent, a friend, a cousin is diagnosed with cancer. You struggle with how to be helpful, how to lend support.
Forming a Relay for Life team is one way many people get involved. A very successful case in point is Fernie’s Snow Sisters. This team of young women started as a result of members having parents who had cancer. The team’s membership has morphed since its start in 2005 but their fund raising events are still well known.
Who in Fernie hasn’t heard of their revealing calendars of early years, the Ladies Night Out movies, the Heel to Heal race on main street complete with natty looking guys in five inch stilettos? And last year’s successful Vegas Night? Team member Mel Fleischacker, a cancer survivor herself, says you just need to look to your social circles for team members. They are in the gym, in your work place, on the chair lift.
“We were just a group of friends who liked to do things together – we all skied together.” So the Snow Sisters were born.
Fleischacker attributes the team’s success to hosting events rather than traditional fund raising. “We all love to dress up in costumes and like the one-time big event idea.” Over the years the team has raised more than $50,000 and received an Award of Excellence last year from the Canadian Cancer Society.
But teams don’t need to host huge events to be successful – “you just need to be a bit creative and look to your group’s interests,” says Fleischacker.
Auctions, book exchange, car wash, dinners, errand service – there are endless ideas that can be modified to suit any group.
To register a Relay team, or to join a team, visit: www.relaybc.ca
Also check out our Facebook Page: Relay for Life – Elk Valley
The Elk Valley’s Relay for Life will be held on Saturday, June 8, 2013 at Fernie Secondary School.