Second-Annual Relay For Life Event a Success

Hundreds of people flocked to Skypark over the weekend for Scotts Valley’s second-annual Relay for Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society and cancer research. The relay is not a race, but a walk, where teams and individuals—many cancer survivors themselves—take turns making sure someone is walking the route for an entire 24 hours.

“Once someone goes to a Relay, they keep going,” event chairwoman Jackie Maurer said. "It’s really a life-changing experience of just feeling so much love from the community."

Maurer has participated in the race for more than a decade, ever since her son was diagnosed with and won the battle against cancer at only 17.

This is the second year that Scotts Valley has had the event, and already it has doubled in size, with tents blanketing the grass of Skypark for the “biggest slumber party in Scotts Valley,” as Maurer called it. There were 28 teams this year, and, so far, more than $42,000 raised.

The race kicked off with 40 cancer survivors walking the track, cheered on by the crowd. Many team tents featured cancer fact sheets and items for sale donated by local businesses.

“It’s so great to get the young people involved, to promote the awareness of it all,” said Joan Gonzales, a Capitola resident diagnosed with squamous cell cancer five years ago. "They are the future scientists."

Gonzales tells people to make sure their doctor checks their entire body for skin cancer every year. “I’m just so into telling people to be aware of skin cancer; it was just a little white bump. A cancer cell escaped from my skin and metastasized in my body.” 

It used to be that once you survive a certain amount of time with a cancer, you are "in the clear," but Gonzales said this isn’t so anymore.

“We don’t know where the mother ship is. You never know when it’s going to pop its ugly head up again.” 

Two years after she was diagnosed with cancer, Gonzales started educating herself about the organic food movement, and she is convinced that cancer comes from the food we eat. 

“I started reading all I could read about why organic is better, and what has been done to our food—the chemicals, growth hormones and pesticides," she said. "It was a wake-up call. We have to help find the cure by eating organics, eating clean meat that hasn’t been treated with growth hormones. We need to take responsibility because you know all of those chemicals get into your body and become part of us.”

Patricia Brown also spoke publicly about her experience with cancer. Although she has two inoperable tumors in her stomach and a type of cancer that knows no cure—follicular lymphoma—she has committed herself to political activism to help find a cure.

“So many of the biggest decisions about your cancer are not made in your doctor’s office; they are made in Washington, D.C., by legislators and in Sacramento by legislators," Brown said. "In every budget there is money set aside for cancer research, and the government decides how much goes where."

The California Cancer Research Act is one campaign on Brown's agenda. It proposes to allocate more than half a billion dollars a year to the state of California for cancer research. The money would be managed by a team of independent people, each representing a research-based organization like the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, American Heart Association and Livestrong. 

"The only people against it are the big tobacco companies," said Brown.

Locally, many organizations and businesses contributed to the Relay fundraiser. Among them are ABM of Scotts Valley, which donated $5,000; and Bruno's Barbeque, with $1,000. Other sponsors are Hines Signs, KPIG Radio, Scotts Valley Fire District, Flower Outlet, Pure Valley Water, Cinespots and the city of Scotts Valley, to name just a few.