I am the captain for 2008's Warrior Marching Band Relay For Life team. This is our first year to do this. Last year, I was walking during this event with another band member, and we thought the band should do this. The turnout has been amazing! There are over 25 people doing it now, (our band is quite small..... ) We plan to do a Midnight March, the name explains itself pretty much, but Devin and I will move the band around the track marching at midnight. Devin and I have no authority in the band actually, so its pretty amazing that we had such a turnout. Only 2 seniors are doing it though, I guess the others didn't want Freshman in charge.

 This is an amazing thing for bands to do, because when you see us on the field, we're stiff, we move like robots, but we're not that. Atleast half of the band has been affected by cancer in some way, I've lost 3 family members and my grandmother has breast cancer right now. This is such a delicate thing, and what RFL does may start a tradition for our band. As far as we know we're the only band doing this....

We want to do an art contest for our county elementary schools and then post the art at Relay and let people "vote" on their favorite as an onsite fundraiser.  Has anyone ever done this at their event?  If so, how did you organize it?  I was thinking about a pre-registration form where we give them a Relay related theme. 

is there some sort of papers we need to fill out if we are a youth team...I am going to be 18 before our event and we have another adult...all the rest are below the age of 17...please help...much love

-katherine

Can anyone tell me what is inside a Mini Relay Kit?

I created a page at Myspace last year and searched for youth in our local highschool.  I found so many!  I just started emailing them and explained that I was trying to recruit leaders to recruit more youth for our local Relay.  I received four emails back from girls wanting to help.  They recruited several new teammates for the high school team which had been pretty small the last couple of years. 

I wasn't sure where to post this, I figured the YOUTH section was the best. We have a NEW Wal-Mart in town and their team has asked my son Devon to help out. See Devon is a Magician and he's 11. He won a magic competion in Pigeon Forge TN in March and Wal-Mart thought it would be cool to have him do shows during the relay. I'll try to post a video of his magic at the bottom of this..but here's the press release that we've sent all over town and posted on every website that we can find.

Local Illusionists Performs for Relay for Life in Smithville TN.

One day. One night. One community:  By participating in an American Cancer Society Relay For Life^® event near you, you honor cancer survivors, pay tribute to the lives lost to the disease, and raise money to help fight it – all right in your community.

Our Relay is celebrating its 14th year.  The Relay has seen its popularity decrease over the last five years in our community.

To try and change that, our Relay is having a Family Fun Fest between 1-5 p.m. on the Saturday afternoon of Relay.

It's geared towards families of elementary-aged kids.

We've got magic shows, games, crafts, mini-golf, batting cages, music, one of the local TV meteorologists is performing his ventriloquist act.  We've invited mascots from around the region to attend.  Our local women's football team is coming.  One of the local minor league baseball teams will be there.

It's sort of a way to let families see what Relay is all about.  The families with elementary kids probably weren't involved with Relay since the Relay here started before their children were born.  So hopefully this event will let them see what this is all about.

Okay, so as ideas go this one has worked really well... the school where one of my events is held agreed to allow the students to "letter" in Relay. So now a student who raises $500 as an individual in a school year, or who is a team cpt. for a team with at least $1500 in donations can earn a letter.... very cool, we actuall have three different "letters" and they can earn one each year.... 40 years old and I am finally gonna get a letter jacket....we had a local company make up the patches, a foot, a ribbon and the RFL log is on everything along with the year they earned it.... teams have been signing up right and left...

Ok, so our Relay is down to T-minus 2 weeks until Kick-Off. Any last minute suggestions for recruiting youth teams??? Any ideas would be greatly greatly greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!!!

~Cate~