Relay For Life Kickoff 2010!!!

Tonight is our Relay For Life Kickoff for our 2010 season! It will be held at the Camas Community Center at 1718 SE 7th Avenue in Camas, WA 98607. Doors will open at 5:30pm so that teams can begin signing up and committee members will be available for questions! Our presentation will then be from 6:00 - 7:00. From 7:00 - 8:00, we will have more time for teams to sign up and the committee will be available for questions!

We are so excited for our Relay season to start here in East Clark County and are excited with the fact that we already have 6 teams that have registered online! The website is as follows:

www.relayforlife.org/eastclarkcountywa

Registration fees are regularly $100. That covers the cost of t-shirts for up to 15 team members. It is $50 for Youth teams. For Kickoff only, the registration fee will be half off ($50 for regular teams and $25 for youth teams)! If you bring a BRAND NEW TEAM that has never participated in our East Clark County Relay, and they also register, your fee will be completely waived! What an amazing incentive to help bring new teams in to Relay!

Our theme this year is "Making Cancer Walk the Plank"! So start planning your tent site decoration for the event! And if you are coming to kickoff, try coming in some pirate themed attire!

Meetings for this year will be the 2nd Monday of every month at the Camas Public Library in the upstairs meeting rooms! Same times as before! 5:30-6:30 for Committee members and 7:00-8:00pm for Team Captains!

We are still looking for a few good men and women to be on our Committee! If you are interested in helping us plan a wonderful 2010 Relay For Life, please let me know! The more we people we have to help plan the event, the better it will be!

Our goals this year are as follows:

84 Teams
200 Survivors
$142,010

Can we do it? Of course we can! So please come to Kickoff tonight and register your team, pick up a Sponsorship packet, register survivors, pickup luminaria bags to sell and just come and have fun!!! Hope to see there!

WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL WE FIND A CURE!!!

Jen Caine
Event Chair
Relay For Life of East Clark County
360-931-4582
relayjenc@hotmail.com

Relay For Life 2009 is over!!!

We raised $125,548.82 at our 2009 Relay For Life on May 30th & 31st! This money will go to the American Cancer Society and it's mission for it's Education, Advocacy, Research and Services! Great job teams! It was a great event with tons of fun and fundraising! Lot's of activities from watermelon eating and pie eating competitions, to cake walks, People Bingo, a scavenger hunt and a kids carnival tent! We had wonderful bands that graciously came and entertained at our event! We even had a magician and some local dancers who added some extra fun! Our annual Mr. Relay was entertaining (as always) and included many "beautiful ladies"! The Survivor lap and luncheon was amazing and the Luminaria Ceremony was extremely moving, as always.

You have all done a wonderful job with your fundraising and I'm looking forward to next year being even better!

Don't forget that you can continue to turn in money until August 31st for this Relay year. Our goal this year is $162,009, so we still have a little ways to go! But any money turned in is better than none!

Our wrap up meeting is Monday June 15th at the Camas Library! 5:30-6:30 for Committee members and 7:00-8:00pm for Team Captains and the public! We are looking for more Committee members for the new year and I know that many of you would be excellent! Please let me know if you are interested because the more we have to help, the better our 2010 Relay will be!

See you soon!
Jen Caine
Event Chair

Garage Sale Fundraiser for Kasey's Crews!

Kasey's Crew & Kasey's Crew Too are having a fundraiser on Saturday April 25th from 9:00am - 5:00pm. If you have anything you would like to donate to Kasey's Crews for the sale, please email Jeannette Hathaway at jeannette.hathaway@vansd.org or call her at 360-573-6091! The address for the sale is 11012 NE 11th Avenue in Vancouver, WA 98685. If you can't donate, just come and shop! They made over $1000 last year and they would like to beat that number this year! The teams have a goal of $10,000 this year in the hopes to have the funds go directly to research for pediatric brain cancer. As you all know, we lost our wonderful Kasey Ryan Radford on February 4th. This is a wonderful way to help keep his memory alive and to honor him and the many other cancer warriors that have fought brain cancer.

Thank you for your support and Happy Relaying!

Jen Caine
Event Chair

Get registered before April 20th!!!!

We will be ordering t-shirts on the 21st! Make sure that your team members are all registered by the 20th! We will be padding the order, but not as much as we have in the past. We had too many boxes of t-shirts left at Relay. So be sure that your team members are all registered to ensure that they receive their t-shirt!

Next meeting on Monday!

Our next meeting is Monday March 16th at the Camas Public Library! 5:30-6:30pm for Committee members and 7:00-8:00 for Team Captains, or anybody else wanting to learn more about Relay!

Don't forget that the Team Captain Challenge is to email as many people as possible from your participant center and tell them about Relay and invite them to make donations on the website! The team that sends the most emails wins an HP Printer/Scanner/Copier! GO TEAMS!!!

Happy Relaying!
Jen

Upcoming Fundraisers!!!

Following is a list of upcoming fundraisers! Please support these teams! Thank you!

"Bowling for a Cure" fundraiser - Team "Bowling For A Cure to Strike out Cancer" (my team) Bailey's Classic Lane - Feb 28th from 6-9pm - $4.00 per game with free shoes - contact Stephanie Cooper at 834-2345 or scooper@tidland.com.

"Pampered Chef Party" - Team "GFWC of Camas/Washougal & Oddfellows" - March 14th from 3 - ? at Washougal Community Center. 25% of sales to Relay. - contact Jeanette Jester at 360-834-2354 or jemajester@aol.com

"Sweet Tomatoes" - Team "GFWC of Camas/Washougal & Oddfellows" - March 25th from 5-8pm. Eat at Sweet Tomatoes on Mill Plain and bring flyer - 15% of sales to Relay - contact Jeanette Jester at 360-834-2354 or jemajester@aol.com to get your flyer.

"Spaghetti feed & Silent Auction - Team "Caralinda's Crew - March 7th from 6-9pm at Zion Lutheran Church - contact - Cheryl Blair at cherylblair2@yahoo.com

"Hunt For A Cure" - Team "Mike's Marchers" - March 12th at 2:00pm - location to be determined. - contact Amanda Howard at 624-2243 or lady_alickina@yahoo.com

"Cinnamon Rolls" that taste like Cinnabon for sale - Team "Camas Chiropractic Center" - March 23-27 will be available for pickup - Place your order by calling Susan at 834-1770. Cost is $5.00 for a 1/2 dozen and $8.00 for a dozen.

If you have a fundraiser that you want added to this blog, please email me at relayjenc@hotmail.com!

Happy Relaying!
Jen Caine

Kasey Ryan Radford - 1/1/98 - 2/4/09

It is with a heavy heart that I must share that Kasey Ryan Radford passed away Wednesday February 4th at 7:26am. He had a massive brain bleed Tuesday night. Kasey was a wonderful little boy that I met in 2006 when he attended his first Relay For Life event. He was in a wheel chair and had just finished a round of chemo. The following 2 years, he was leading our Survivor Lap with a big smile on his face, while the rest of us had tears and smiles on ours, watching this brave young man proudly walk the Survivor Lap. Kasey impressed everyone he met with his determination to fight this evil thing called cancer and he was determined to live his life to the fullest, no matter how short it would be. We are all lucky and blessed to have had this little boy in our lives. We have all learned lessons from him and his amazing family. We will also fight harder than ever to find a cure for this disease so that no parent has to lose their child to cancer.

If any of you are interested in attending Kasey's service, it will be on Monday at 7:00pm. It will be held at City Harvest Church located at 8100 NW 9th Avenue in Vancouver, WA 98665. Get there early, as seating will fill up quickly.

I am attaching pictures of Kasey below that I hope you all enjoy. We love you Kasey and are happy that you are now cancer free and flying high watching over all of us.

Jen Caine

Prayers for Kasey

One of our Cancer Warriors is Kasey Radford and he is 11 years old. He has been fighting a brain tumor called Glioblastoma since he was 8 years old. His teams are "Kasey's Crew", "Kasey's Crew II" and "Kasey's Cruisers". Kasey is also our "Honorary Committee Member" and he is the one who draws the tickets at our meetings for door prizes. Kasey and his mom Amy were unable to come to the meeting on Monday. At the start of the meeting, we found out that Kasey had 2 strokes and was having bleeding in his right temporal lobe. As of this morning, it seems that Kasey will be having surgery on Friday, I believe to try and stop the bleeding. Please keep Kasey and his family in your prayers. I am linking the Caring Bridge site below where Kasey's mom shares about updates of Kasey. Their is a guestbook on the website and Kasey enjoys hearing all the messages left by everyone. If you can leave a message for Kasey, I'm sure he would enjoy hearing from you. Again, please keep Kasey in your prayers. Thank you.

http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/viewHome.do

Jen Caine
Event Chair

Next meeting Monday January 26th!

The next meeting is Monday January 26th at the Camas Public Library! It will be the 2nd Kickoff and an opportunity for BRAND NEW teams to register for half price at the meeting! 5:30 - 6:30pm is the Committee Meeting and 7:00 - 8:00pm is the Team Captain/Public meeting! See you then!

Happy Relaying!
Jen Caine

Monday meetings are canceled!

We are canceling the Relay For Life meetings tomorrow, Monday the 15th, because of the current weather conditions. Safety is our top priority and we don't want anyone traveling in these conditions. We will have our next meeting on Monday, January 26th, 2009.

If you have money that you want to turn in before our next meeting, please mail to the address below. Please ensure that the money is in a money envelope and your team name and number are listed.

ECC RFL
PO Box 693
Camas, WA 98607

Please have a Merry Christmas and a safe New Year! See you in 2009!!!

Happy Relaying!
Jen Caine
Event Chair

The 1st Committee & Team Captain Meeting of the year!!!

Tonight was simply amazing!!! We had our 1st official Committee meeting and then Team Captain/Public meeting! We had a great turnout with 42 attendees! Thank you to everyone who came and I hope you enjoyed yourselves and learned some new things!

It is Lung Cancer awareness month, so I shared some facts about Lung Cancer. I also shared a blog of Doreen Schmidt, a woman fighting lung cancer that hasn't smoked a day in her life! To check it out, go to http://cancersurvivor2006.blogspot.com.

Congratulations to the Heathman Lodge for being the first team to register 15 participants! You are AWESOME!!!

The "Team Captain Challenge" that I have put forth this month is.......the first Team Captain that gets 15 team members registered online, will receive a $20 gift card to Best Buy! Each Team Captain thereafter that gets 15 team members registered, will receive some type of prize! The prizes will be awarded at the next meeting on Monday, December 15th!!! So get those team members registered!!!

If you want to be part of the "$1000 Club", you simply have to raise $1000 as an individual! We had 9 participants that made the $1000 Club last year!!! The total amount raised between the 9 participants......$21,064.06!!! YOU ARE RELAY ROCKSTARS!!!

Well, it is 10:30pm and I should probably get to bed! I will leave you with a quote that I listed on the agenda tonight!

"The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side." So remember that all of us are working together for one reason...to find a cure for cancer. Have a nice evening and sleep tight!

Happy Relaying!
Jen Caine

Relay University!!!

It was Relay University today in Portland and we had close to 300 participants attend! We had 16 attend from our East Clark County Relay Committee! Relay University was training for our Committee members and I think they all came away energized and excited about this year!!! The better trained that the Committee is, the more ideas they have, and the better our Relay is!!!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that our very own Relay came in 2nd place for amount raised by a Relay in our Region! If I am correct, that is approximately 25 Relays! That is awesome and I was extremely excited to accept our banner! I will be sure to bring it to the next meeting, as well as have it hung up at our Relay! Great job to all of you that worked very hard last year and helped us come in 2nd place!!! You are awesome!!!

Our next meeting is on Monday November 17th at the Camas Public Library! If you are on the Committee, or interested in being on the Committee, our meeting is from 5:30pm - 6:30pm. Team Captain & Public Meeting is from 7:00pm - 8:00pm. It is Lung Cancer Awareness month and we will be sharing some information as well! We hope to see you there!!!

Happy Relaying!
Jen Caine
Event Chair

We're ropin' in more teams!

Kickoff was a success and I want to thank everyone who attended and helped! You are all awesome!!! We had 38 teams sign up at Kickoff and almost $6000 turned in! Our goal is 74 teams, so we surpassed our halfway goal at Kickoff! That night, we also acquired 6 brand new teams to Relay and I'm excited to have them join our growing Relay! Since Kickoff, we have added 3 new teams for a total of 41 TEAMS!!! I'm excited that we are starting this year out with a wonderful turnout and everyone excited to start fund-raising!

Speaking of fundraisers, Our first one of the year was on Sunday November 2nd and it was Caralinda's Crew Bunco Bash! It was a hit with total funds raised of $1459!!! Great job Caralinda's Crew! I enjoyed coming and had tons of fun as always! If you missed out, they will be having one again next year!!!

If you are looking for gifts for Christmas, you should check out the 1st annual "Hope for the Holiday's" bazaar that will be held on Sunday November 16th at the Red Lion in Jantzen Beach. Teams from Relays from Salem to Longview will have tables at the bazaar selling all kinds of items! So come start your Christmas shopping, and know that your money if going back to Relay For Life! It will be from 9:00am - 4:00pm.

Don't forget! If you have a fundraiser coming up for your team, please let me know as soon as possible! I will advertise it on the blog, and our local, Portland/Vancouver region, www.relayrumble.org website will advertise it as well!

Our first meeting will be on Monday November 17th at the Camas Public Library in the upstairs meeting rooms. Committee Members meet from 5:30 - 6:30pm and Team Captains or people interested in learning about Relay meet from 7:00 - 8:00pm. As a reminder, if you haven't registered yet, you can do it at our meeting. Please remember to bring your registration fee of $100 for a team, or $50 for a youth team. You must pay your registration fee at the time you register.

Happy Relaying!
Jen Caine
Event Chair

Fighting Cancer with Food!

Did you know that on any given day in the United States, 1.8 billion calories are consumed­­­­­­—one-half million more than are needed? Overweight and obesity may account for 14 percent of all cancer deaths in men and 20 percent of all cancer deaths in women.

Maintaining a healthy weight throughout your life, adopting a physically active lifestyle, consuming a healthy diet with an emphasis of plant sources and limiting alcoholic beverages are all ways to limit your risk to cancer, says Colleen Doyle, American Cancer Society’s nutrition expert.

Several bodies of research have shown that becoming overweight increases the likelihood of developing six different types of cancer.

Eating right becomes increasingly challenging for many people during the holiday season. However, Doyle says those holiday meals don’t have to be filled with many extra calories. She suggests good planning with choice ingredients can help skinny down holiday meals without compromising taste.

“Sweet potatoes, cranberries, pumpkin, acorn squash are must-have fruits and vegetables at many a family feast, and they just happen to be loaded with cancer-fighting beta carotene, phytochemicals and fiber,” says Doyle.

Maintaining your optimum weight reduces your risk for cancer. For great pointers how to stock your grocery cart cancer-fighting food, check out Colleen Doyle’s fun and healthy tips video.

Want to get started now? Here are some healthy recipes to try. Learn to eat right with ACS Virtual Dietitian.

Fundraisers to start the Relay season!!!

I know we haven't had Kickoff yet to register teams, but many teams are already planning their fundraisers! I will list fundraisers on the right side of this blog as I get them. I have flyers for the fundraisers, and if you would like me to email them to you, just let me know!

On November 2nd, Caralinda's Crew will be holding the 5th Annual Bunco Bash!!! I've have attended before and will be going again, and it is a blast!!! So call your friends and get your tickets now, while they are available! This event may sell out quick!!! I hope to see you there!

Caralinda's Crew also has an iPod they are selling raffle tickets for! Contact Patti Lusk if you are interested in purchasing any!

Nautilus will be having a Chili Cookoff on November 22nd! Sounds like a smokin' good time! And you can purchase raffle tickets to win some awesome workout equipment! So let's get pumped up and support this awesome fundraiser!

Our American Cancer Society staff partners have organized an amazing opportunity for ALL of the teams from all of the Relay's in the Portland/Vancouver! On November 16th, they will be holding the 1st annual "Hope For the Holiday's - Relay For Life Holiday Expo"! This Holiday Expo gives teams a head start on their fundraising while giving shoppers a chance to do holiday shopping AND give back to the American Cancer Society! The Red Lion Inn at Jantzen Beach will be hosting it. If you are interested in selling crafts, jewelry, games, etc... for your team fundraising, this is the place to do it! The table cost is $25 and all you need to bring is your items for sale and decor for your table! They have space for 100 tables and are inviting over 750 teams from the area - so sign up soon! Registration deadline is November 10th! For more information, please contact me, or the ACS staff partner organizing the event, Cheryl Jones. Ph# is 503-795-3971 or Cheryl.Jones@cancer.org.

If you have a fundraiser, please let me know and I will post it on this blog!

Happy Relaying!!!
Jen Caine
Event Chair

It's already time for Kickoff!!!

I can't believe it, but it is already time for us to hold our Kickoff Event to start out our 2009 Relay For Life of East Clark county!!! Here are the details as we have a few new changes & perks....

* Kickoff will be held on Monday October 20th at Nautilus Corporation. Located at 16400 SE Nautilus Drive in Vancouver, WA 98683.

* Time is 6:00pm - 8:00pm

* Registration begins on Monday October 20th at Kickoff!!!

* Teams cannot consist of more than 15 team members

* $50 Registration fee on Kickoff night ONLY (regularly $100)

* FREE Registration for a returning team that brings a new team that registers!

* FREE Registration for the team that brings the most team members to Kickoff!!!

* Only the Team Captain or a Team Member must attend to register their team. However, we do encourage as many people to attend as possible!

* We will recognize all Survivors that attend and have a slide show of pictures from our 2008 Relay For Life event!!!

* We will also have information for new people that want to know more about Relay For Life, as well as how to be a team, how to be a sponsor, purchase a luminaria, register a Survivor or become a volunteer!

* The Relay For Life of East Clark County website will become active after Kickoff on the 20th or 21st. The website will be .... http://www.relayforlife.org/eastclarkcounty

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at relayjenc@hotmail.com!

See you on Monday the 20th!!!

Jen :-)

RFL 2008

Click on the picture below to view the 2008 photos from our Relay For Life event
in East Clark County! It will take you to Photobucket and you can scroll through
and view the photos! Hope you enjoy!

Photobucket Album

Welcome!!!

I would like to welcome you to the new blog for our Relay For Life of East Clark County, held in Camas, WA! I am hoping that this will be a good place for Relay participants to go and find out information about our Relay and what is going on! The website that is provided to us by The American Cancer Society is not active 365 days a year, and the address might change. I have also tried sending emails to every participant in the past, and somehow I wind up in the junk box quite often!!! So now we have a place that can stay the same for many years to come and everyone can access! Please be sure to check this site regularly for updates, meeting information, upcoming fundraisers, etc...! I will be sharing reminders about registration, camp site sign-ups, meeting updates, etc...! I have also listed the meeting dates on the right side for you to reference! I am confirming the location that we will be having our meetings at and will list it as soon as possible! If you ever have any questions or want to list your fundraiser on this blog, please email me at relayjenc@hotmail.com or call me at 360-931-4582! I will be the Event Chair for 2009 & 2010! So don't forget to bookmark this as your favorite site and check back regularly for updates! Thanks again for visiting our new blog and I hope you come back again soon! Have a great day!!

Relaying for a Cure,
Jen Caine