Community Corner
Plant City Relay For Life a Top State Effort
The last of the eight Relays for Life overseen by the Brandon-based American Cancer Society Southeast Hillsborough Unit wraps up at Plant City High School on April 9. Collectively, the area's eight Relays are expected to raise more than $875,000.
Barbara Franques earlier this month discussed Willis Peters, the man for whom the exceptional student education center at Dover Elementary School has been named posthumously.
At the f, held at the Brandon Elks Lodge on April 3, Franques talked about how Peters had a goal to build a handicapped-accessible playground, “and without exception every person we asked and every business we asked stepped up to the plate so we could build that playground."
That spirit of giving, she said, is likewise apparent at the annual Plant City Relay For Life, which this year, after final receipts are counted, is expected to hit its goal of raising $250,000.
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“Just like they doubted Willis Peters, for his goals for the playground, so some people once doubted our goal for the Relay,” Franques said at Plant City High School on April 8, the first day of the overnight fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. “But I believe we will get there this year."
“Getting there” means raising $250,000 for the fight against cancer and in support of survivors and caregivers.
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Committee Chair Linda Herman said during the Plant City event that already some $212,000 had been raised. The count two days earlier, April 6, was around $172,000, according to Sara Levinson, of the American Cancer Society Southeast Hillsborough Unit.
“We’re the fourth-largest Relay in the state, which is amazing for the size town we are,” Herman said. “But that’s how Plant City is, we come together as a community. This is our 13th year and every year it keeps getting bigger. In this economy, for us to bring in that kind of money, it’s amazing."
Indeed, times are good for the eight Relays under oversight of the southeast unit; the are expected to top $875,000 this year, Levinson said. Included in the count are Relays at Bloomingdale, Brandon, Lennard, Newsome and Riverview high schools as well as at Burnett Middle School. The eight event is in Sun City Center.
The reason for the support?
“Cancer just touches so many people’s lives,” Herman said. “Years ago you might have known somebody who knew somebody who had cancer, Now it’s your family and friends getting cancer. People are ready to find a cure.”
Count among them Franques, whose husband died nine years ago after battling the disease for nine- and a-half years.
“He fought his battle and that’s why we keep fighting the battle, for him and for others who are fighting the disease, but certainly in his name and memory,” Franques said about her family’s participation in the event.
Also victims of the disease: Franques’ mother and two aunts.
“Each type of cancer is unique onto itself and the treatment is unique, too,” Franques said. “No two people respond to the treatment the same way."
But cancer does not have a chance, she added.
Not if the Relay For Life movement, started to help find a cure and to support those in the fight for their lives, has anything to do with it.
“People are so willing to be a part of this,” Franques said, "because so many families have been impacted by cancer."
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