Hundreds of people are planning to walk in St. Joseph Saturday with the mission to try to find a cure for Cancer.

The American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life will take place Saturday, July 11 at the Civic Arena.

“We do a 12-hour event to kind of symbolize a cancer patient’s walk with the different things they go through with their treatments,” said Trey Drowns, event coordinator. “So each team will have someone on their team walking the entire 12 hours.”

Drowns said as of Thursday afternoon there were 27 teams signed up to take part in the event.  He said teams ranged from one or two people to a team upwards of 60 people on a team.

“Relay for Life is the largest fundraising event for the American Cancer Society,” Drowns said. “30 years ago it started as just one person walking around a track himself just wanting to raise awareness for cancer research and it kind of just caught on.”

This year’s fundraising goal is $32,000 for cancer research. Drowns said Thursday $21,500 had already been raised.

Donations are being accepted at the day of the relay, or online.

“Each team will have some type of game or activity or food or something like that to sell at relay so we can raise more funds that day,” he said.

Music, activities and food will also be on hand.

“We’d love for the community to come out and support the American Cancer Society,” Drowns said.

Drowns said a free breakfast will be held at 8:30 that morning for cancer survivor’s and their caregivers.

 

For more information check out www.relayforlife.org or contract Drowns at [email protected] or (816)-294-0390.