So excited!

I'm so excited about my blog topic today that I don't even know where I'll start.

I'll start with the flyer we had on our door the first week we lived here. It was in our temporary new house, not even our current house. The flyer was inviting us to an open house to find out more about the first annual Relay for Life in Seaside. They were looking for volunteers, teams, and other areas of involvement and would be at a pizzeria for 2 hours on May 29. Austin had picked it up off the door and he showed me later, saying 'This could be fun to do'.

We didn't talk about it for a few more weeks, then when he found out he had to go to south Carolina he said 'I'm bummed cause I won't be able to go to that open house thing'. I had no clue what he was talking about! Since the day we found the flyer I had started my job, where the Salinas Relay for Life is a huge event. My firm is very involved in the relay, so I think I just had mentally decided I'd piggy back on my firm. But Austin wanted us to be involved in the one in our town, so I agreed to go to the open house.

I went. I was the only person there. Literally - not even the Relay representative was there! I emailed her later saying I must have missed her but that we are interested.

She happens to be the cousin of the HR person here at work, and she happens to work 10 minutes from me. So we met for lunch later that week to talk about how we could get involved.

If you aren't familiar (because I wasn't) Relay for life is a 24 hour event put on in local communities by the American Cancer Society to raise funds and awareness for cancer research. Teams agree to have a team member on the track at all times for 24 hours, signifying that cancer never sleeps and neither will we. There are Relays all over the world, and it is a very successful event all over California.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. William and I went to the Salinas Relay with my coworkers. We had signed up to walk from 12-1 so we went at 10:30 when it opened, had lunch, walked, enjoyed the festivities and left around 3. Turns out Salinas has one of the largest relays in the world, so seeing it as an example for what a relay can become was pretty cool. The event is kicked off by a 'survivor lap' where they invite all survivors to wear their purple shirts and take a victory lap. I had no idea how touching it would be. Children on their parents shoulders. Teenagers with their high school sweethearts. Elderly men dragging oxygen tanks. Cancer survivors of all types; it was incredible. The track is lined with team tents, where teams have fundraisers (like games of bra pong, or bake sales) donning pictures of loved ones lost and lives saved. It was an awesome day. During the opening remarks the event coordinator announced that in 2011 cancer related deaths were on the decline. Amen!!!

Monday morning I had an email from Lindsey, the representative in charge of getting the Seaside relay started, letting me know our first volunteer Meeting is next Tuesday.

We are volunteers! And if that isn't scary enough, we are THE volunteers. As of now it's us. I am the event coordinator and Austin is the team captain coordinator. Our titles don't really matter, Lindsey just had to list us as something. But it's us- that's it.

It is exciting for me to close my eyes and fast forward 3 years from now. We could be on the brink of kicking off the 4th annual Seaside relay. We could be on the brink of our last relay here, and we could have started a great thing. We could have helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research! We could have started with nothing and built a large community went!

Or it could be a bust. We could crumble. We could be 3 people alone on a track for 24 hours (well, that's not true - my mom and stepdad are on our team so it'll be at least 5!) we could have no community support or interest. It could fail.

It's easy to jump on board a ship that's already afloat. It's easy to join a team with your firm who has been involved for 10 years with a Relay that is 25 years old. It's not easy to build a ship from scratch. Especially when you know nothing of ships!!!

I don't know how to solicit donations or recruit volunteers or encourage people and businesses to build teams. I don't know how to gear people up to get excited to fight cancer. I don't know how to lead this.

But I am. We are. Austin and I are starting a Seaside Relay for Life. While our team (Austin is hoping to build a team in his platoon) name is Team WTB in honor of my dad, we are joining the cause for so many reasons. For his aunt who passed away from breast cancer. For my aunt who has survived. For all the people in the purple shirts I saw last weekend, and in hopes that the purple shirts multiply each year.

We are very excited, but very nervous. Please help us - by your prayer, encouragement, and/or financial support. Please help us make this a success!


- manda