I am looking for some ideas for my fellow Relayers. Let me give you the background:
We have a woman who is a member of our Relay family. She has been with our event since day one (this is our 14th year). She was our event co-chair for 3 years, and has chaired the survivorship and publicity committees as well. She was diagnosed with breast cancer the same year our event began, and successfully beat it. At our first even probably 95% of the luminaria were in her name. However, last spring her cancer returned, and she is currently once again in a fight for her life. Because of this, she stepped down from the committee this year, and her absence has certainly been felt. We all say Relay is a family, and she is our Relay mom, it has been so hard without her this year.
Anyway, back to my question, we would like to honor her in some fashion at the event. Her team has pulled together to walk in her honor, and she will be there to cheer them on. Does anyone have any suggestions about honorary positions, titles, or some other way we can honor all she has done and given to Relay, as a way to support her, as an event, the way she has supported us?
We had chosen an Honorary Chair, a past event chair who has battled cancer for 12 years and has given so much to our Relay. She even managed to get a $20K donation every year from her family! She passed away last Saturday, two weeks before Relay, and we are trying to put together a great tribute to her. I am glad that your Honorary Chair is still with you! You might want to write a short speech about her, including comments about her from her loved ones, and ask her to speak if she is willing. Then give her some sort of thank you gift at Opening Ceremonies and maybe make a cluster of Luminaria on the track all hers, with messages from the committee, her team and the community.
Good luck!
Heather
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Heather Alvey
Event Chair for Reno/Sparks
May 26, 2008 - 11:04am login or register to post comments
Ann Wheet
Posts: 56
Joined: 2007-09-11
Volunteer of the Year Award
Another idea would be to establish a "volunteer of the year" (or some other name) annual award. My guess is you would easily find someone to honor each year.
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Ann Wheet, Illinois
Proud to be an American Cancer Society Volunteer
May 20, 2008 - 11:41pm login or register to post comments
jan schut
Posts: 13
Joined: 2008-03-06
Honoring Your Survivor
What we generally do is choose a cancer survivor to cut the ribbon to start our survivors lap. If they are able we ask them to tell a little of thier cancer story. Then if they are able, to lead the lap. It is a symbol of triumph. One I think all cancer survivors deserve. We use purple ribbon(crepe paper) but you could even use pink.
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Jan
May 9, 2008 - 3:10pm login or register to post comments
Joined: 2006-11-06