Page E. Bishop Editor

Leader of the Track Sandy Davis is Ready to Relay Interview by Page E. Bishop Published: June 2005 Sandy Davis, co-chair and co-founder of Williamsburg Relay For Life, is ready to relay. Relay is open to anyone. You don't have to be on a team to participate. Everyone in the community is invited to attend and make a personal pilgrimage around the track. My four-year-old granddaughter walked last year and she had a wonderful time. If you haven’t been to a Relay, it’s awesome. There are a lot of emotional highs and lows. You wouldn’t think that something so emotional could be fun, but it is. Relay is an event for the entire family. Attractions this year are games for children, food vendors, raffles, contests, face-painting and a dunking booth. It’s like being at a carnival. Relay is an opportunity to honor those who are struggling with cancer or those who are survivors, and to memorialize those who have lost their battle so they will not be forgotten. Everyone is there for a single purpose—to make sure there are more survivors. We want to make cancer a disease you live with, not a disease you die from. When my husband died from colon cancer, I wanted to find a way to make sense of his death. Then my good friend, Charlotte Jones, invited me to a Relay on the Southside and afterwards we said to each other, “We’ve got to do this. Williamsburg needs this. Williamsburg has to have one.” I am also a survivor. I was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. Last year at Relay I was still in chemo. The type of chemotherapy I received was a direct result of money raised by the American Cancer Society. Relay For Life started twenty years ago with one man who walked for 24 hours around a track to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Since then, over 1 billion dollars has been raised to fund cancer research—proof that one person really can impact the world. Our goal for the first year was set at $25,000. We raised 10 times that amount. In just four years, Williamsburg Relay For Life has raised $1.25 million for cancer research. I am so proud to be a part of this wonderful community, because that is what makes Relay a success. We see the benefit of what we are doing all around us—and it is thrilling to know it makes a difference. My daughter was there the first year. I don’t know what she thought we were doing, but she was astonished. Her exact words were, “Mom, I am blown away.” It was just a phenomenal event for the community. The first lap is the survivors lap. It’s an amazing sight. Cancer survivors are led around the track by the Fife and Drum Corps. The lighting of the luminarias is another emotional part of the night. This year we will read the names on each candle for whom the luminaria was donated. We are looking forward to a dry night. Last year we could not light them because of the wind and rain. I will walk in the survivors' lap again this year. Last year my whole family walked with me. We walked together in the rain. They look forward to doing it again.

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