Relay for Life of Middletown kicks off its 10th year

    Every June, the local masses head to Silver Lake Park to join in contests and games, open their wallets to buy all sorts of hand-made items and home-cooked creations, and walk, and walk and walk for 24 hours. And they’ll continue this tradition every year until a cure is found for one deadly disease – cancer.
     For someone who isn’t familiar with their cause, it would be hard to know that behind every one of the countless smiling faces at the annual event is a person who has been affected by cancer.
    American Cancer Society Relay for Life events are held around the nation every year. Teams of people raise pledges for the event, during which they walk for 24 hours continuously, usually with at least one team member walking at all times.
    Co-Chair Susan Faulkner remembers when the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life of Middletown didn’t exist.
    It was 15 years ago this month when she lost her aunt, Bev Teat, to breast cancer.
    “My family felt we needed to do something, but we didn’t know what it was,” Faulkner said. “I found this Relay for Life at Hodgson. I called my mother and said, ‘I know what we can do. This is how we can fight back.’ ”
    Word spread through her family and soon her relatives flocked to Delaware to join in the Paul M. Hodgson Vocational Technical High School Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research in memory of Teat.
    “We did Hodgson for three years and loved it,” Faulkner said. “One of the American Cancer Society staff people came to me that second or third year and said, ‘You should do one of these in Middletown.’ ”
    She said she went to Middletown Mayor Ken Branner Jr. and told him what they wanted to do and what they needed to get it started. She asked if he would be willing to help.
    “He did not hesitate and said, ‘Absolutely. We would love to do Relay for Life in Middletown,’ ” Faulkner said. “That’s how it started.”
    She said they put it together and held the first Relay for Life of Middletown in 2000. The Town of Middletown continues to provide its support by sponsoring the event and town employees help set up and break down the equipment and tents each year. They also provide other support during the event.
    “Our goal for the first year was to have 25 teams and I think we had 35,” Faulkner said. “It’s just huge now. We have raised more than $1 million in this community in nine years.”
    That first year, 488 people joined teams and raised $78,612. The top team was Natalia’s Angels, which raised $13,149. Seventy-five cancer survivors were in attendance.
    The next year, the total money raised surpassed $150,000.
    In 2008, 843 people and 66 teams raised $214,793 for cancer research. Immanuel United Methodist Church of Townsend was the top fundraising team with $30,197. The number of cancer survivors continues to rise over the years, too, with 167 at the 2008 event.
    “We’ve had some teams that have been with us from the beginning and fortunately we have new teams that come every year,” Faulkner said. “We’re thrilled to have new teams because they revive us and refresh us.”
    Eight years ago, she went in search of a new co-chair to help organize the Relay for Life with her. She found Mary Ward Hutchison.
    “Mary was the Team Events chairperson and I asked if she would be interested in doing it for two years,” Faulkner said. “Her team is the Cherry Grove Gang. She does it in memory of both of her parents. She’s lost her mom and her dad to cancer.”
    Faulkner said Hutchison didn’t step down after her committed two years as co-chair was up. The two still work together each year as a good, balanced team.
    “I’m very spontaneous and Mary likes to think things through, but she has become a little more spontaneous and I have become a little more organized.”
    Both Faulkner and Hutchison are employed by the Appoquinimink School District. Faulkner is a teacher at Cedar Lane Early Childhood Center and Hutchison is an adapted physical education teacher.

Ten years of Relay
    Faulkner said the committee recently held its Kick Off event, where they get people pumped up for the upcoming Relay, recognize winners from the previous event and get information and materials to team captains.
    “This year, we had a birthday theme. We had lots of balloons and a clown made balloon animals for people,” she said. “The theme for 2009 is ‘25 years of Relay, 10 years of Hope, 1 Community.’ We’re going to make it fun and festive and exciting for everybody.”
    Faulkner said it wasn’t long after the first relay when traditions started to pop up at the annual event, like the white dove release.
    “That is not unique to Middletown, but that is something not a lot of Relays do,” she said. “I have heard it’s a very emotional time for most of the survivors and they’re very excited to be a part of something like that.”
    Survivors get to take the first lap around the track during the Survivors’ Lap to kick off the Relay.
    The committee always spelled out “HOPE” with luminaria bags in the stands at the Silver Lake track, but they had to get creative when the stands were taken down two years ago.
    “I had seen a wooden letter idea online, so I printed it out and took it to the Town of Middletown Maintenance Department,” Faulkner said.
    She said town employees constructed single wooden letters to spell “HOPE” and strung rope lights around the sign.
    Faulkner said for the 2008 Relay, the Town constructed letters to spell “CURE.” Halfway through the event, they took the “HOPE” sign down and replaced it with “CURE.”
    “That was so exciting. It just really reminds all of us of why we’re there,” she said. “Everybody there has hope. Everybody is hopeful and we all want cancer to be eradicated from our community. We’re hoping for that cure and when you see those letters up there in the morning, you think, ‘We can do this.’ ”
    Now the luminaria bags line the Silver Lake track and are lit during the Luminaria Ceremony. Each bag contains a candle that is lit in honor of or in memory of someone who has battled cancer.
    The youngest Relayers were given their own lap during the event in 2007. The Kids Walk started with 50 participants the first year and 35 in 2008.
    Another Middletown tradition is the Paint the Town Purple Pep Rally held on Cochran Square, which started two years ago.
    Faulkner said the rally is meant to bring awareness about the event to those who may not know about it, and it’s hard to miss the crowd of people gathered at the center of town, all decked out in purple and having fun.
    “We’re looking at it as a time to make people in the community who have not heard of Relay ask what it is,” Faulkner said. “Hopefully somebody can direct them to the event because once you come to the event, you’re hooked. Once you’re there, you want to become involved.”
    Another event, which made its debut in 2008, is “Blues for the Cure,” which was started by Middletown resident and musician Charlie Rickner with his band, the Barrelhouse Blues Band, and lower case blues.
    The bands packed Tom Foolery’s Restaurant & Bar with blues fans and Relayers.
    “That was so much fun,” Faulkner said. “We are always excited about different fundraising things.”
    The bands plan to go as big as possible for the next Blues for the Cure, which will be held Sunday, May 17, 2009.
    For dozens of teams and hundreds of M.O.T. residents, Relay for Life of Middletown is a tradition itself, and there are sure to be countless traditions within the teams.
    Even the co-chairs have a Relay for Life tradition, which stemmed from the rainfall that has come almost every year of the event.
    During one downpour, the Relay was broken up due to the severe weather. Faulkner and Hutchison decided to dig into a batch of brownies brought by an ACS staff member.
    “We figured if it’s going to rain, we might as well eat chocolate,” Faulkner said. “That has become our tradition. Usually 11 p.m., when it’s starting to quiet down a little bit and we have a minute to sit down and take a breath, we whip out those brownies and that gets us through to till the morning.”
     Like many of the Relay for Life participants, the co-chairs stay at the event for the whole time, and to help before and after it begins.
     Faulkner said down time during the event didn’t exist for the co-chairs until the last few years.
     “The last two years, we have felt like it’s a very well-oiled machine because of the wonderful committee people and team captains we have,” she said. “We’re all hopeful that some day there is not going to be cancer because Relay for Life and other events help fund research. We are going to be a part of making this happen so nobody else has to stand by the bedside of their aunt, or mom or dad, and watch them die.”
    The 2009 Relay for Life of Middletown will be held Friday, June 5 to Saturday, June 6. For more information or to register a team, go to www.middletownrelay.org.