Society honors cancer warriors and survivors

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GALLUP — “Celebrate, Remember and Fight Back,” is the theme of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life board’s annual reception for cancer survivors.

The event this year will be at 7 p.m., Tuesday at the New Mexico Cancer Center, 2240 College Drive, across from the University of New Mexico-Gallup.

Cancer survivors, friends, family member and the public are invited to attend the reception, where activities are planned and refreshments will be served, said Joyce Graves, a breast cancer survivor and a volunteer for the society.

Between 25 and 50-plus survivors have attended the event during the past five years, she said.

“We (Relay for Life board of directors) used to have the reception on Sunday afternoons, and we decided that probably was not good for a lot of people,” Graves said.
“We wanted more people so we moved it to a weeknight, (Tuesday), and we hope to have a really good turnout,” she said.

The reception will focus on the theme of “Celebrate, Remember and Fight Back,” she said, with a presentation to open the reception, then everyone attending will be able to circulate to three “stations,” each with one of the three parts of the theme.

The “celebrate” station will have board members talking about the Relay for Life and asking attendees whether they want to join the Relay, form a team or make a pledge, for example, to bring a survivor to the Relay in June 2008.

The Relay next year is on June 20 at the Gallup Sports Complex. Pledges are made by teams and individuals to raise money for the cancer society.

Although some information about the relay will be provided as part of the event, there will be ample time for discussing other topics and for having refreshments.

At the “remember” station, those who are attending will have an opportunity to decorate a luminaria, which will be placed around the room during the reception.

During the “fight back,” portion of the reception, people will learn about different ways to fight back, such as bring a survivor to the Relay, talking to a sister, mother, daughter or a friend about getting a mammogram to screen for breast cancer and how to join the ACS Cancer Action Network, which is a sister organization to the society.

Cancer Action Network is a lobbying organization, which been able to get the state legislature to fund breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings through insurance and to pay for those women who are under-insured or have no insurance, Graves said.

The time at each station will be about 10-15 minutes, Graves said, maybe a little more as needed.
Everyone will be gathered together at the end of the evening to have a ceremony and a couple of cancer survivors will talk.

Anyone with questions or needing directions is asked to contact Graves at (505) 863-3075 or Bev Crowe at (505) 726-0808.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.