SEQUIM – The Sequim Relay for Life is a little shorter and less populous this year than last, but the orchestrators are determined to make it a good sock hop — with hula hooping, glow-in-the-dark yo-yos, root beer floats and other 1950s-inspired festivities.
So if you’re feeling down about anything in your life, “come on down to the track, and we’ll cheer you up,” said Suzy Van Ausdle, the new Relay for Life team coordinator and captain of the Wal-Mart team.
This is Sequim’s fourth annual relay to raise funds for the American Cancer Society’s research and support programs, but an entirely new organizing committee had to start from scratch last spring, Van Ausdle said.
Many who took part in the past, either as coordinators or walkers, were unable to participate in the event, which typically takes almost a year to plan.
Van Ausdle blames the nation’s economic crisis.
“People’s jobs have gotten a lot busier because of layoffs,” she said, “People who could take time off before couldn’t do it this year.”
Van Ausdle said the event’s goal this year is $16,000, and despite the challenges, the participants are halfway there.
Walk, run, dance
On Relay for Life weekend, participants spend a day and a night on the Sequim High School football field, walking, running and even dancing laps.
They might doze some, but there’s a lot of eating, drinking and socializing.
It’s all about celebrating survival of cancer, remembering loved ones lost to the disease and sharing encouragement with cancer patients.
The gathering traditionally stretches for 24 hours, but Sequim’s relay will last just 21, starting at noon Saturday and finishing at 9 a.m. Sunday.
Van Ausdle said her organizing committee made this change since many participants pack up to go on Sunday morning anyway. But next year, she predicted, the relay will return to its full length.
Chuck Murphy, another relay team captain, said participants number about half what they did in 2008.
He sought to recruit teams from several corporations with stores in Sequim, “but they just felt they couldn’t put a team together.”
A number of local organizations do have teams: Murphy is captain of the Sequim Association of Realtors squad, and First Federal is fielding a team called the Boppers.
Wal-Mart’s team, the Life Flames, is among the fundraisers.
During the relay, team members and anyone else who comes out to the field will have ample opportunities to do something besides walk.
Activities
At 8:30 p.m. Saturday, for example, a hula-hooping contest will get started, and the person who travels the farthest with hoop aloft will win a prize, Murphy promised. Then his team of Realtors will take a lap with their glowing yo-yos at 9 p.m.
The annual luminaria ceremony, in which small, decorated bags with candles inside are arrayed around the field, is set for 11 p.m. “when it’s good and dark,” Murphy said.
Relay participants and visitors are invited to decorate a bag in honor of someone who has faced cancer, and add it to the display.
While Van Ausdle will be supporting co-workers who are coping with cancer, Murphy will celebrate the survival of his nephew, Jarred Murphy of El Cajon, Calif.
At 17, Jarred was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It spread to his lungs and other vital organs, and he underwent chemotherapy “like a champ,” his uncle said.
Jarred is a healthy 28 now.
Van Ausdle emphasizes that cancer survivors, whether they’re relay team members or not, can join the relay’s opening “victory lap” at noon.
And everyone is welcome to take part in the other activities, including movies at midnight, a “pajamas and bed head” lap at 6 a.m. Sunday, breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and a “morning sock hop dance party” at 8 a.m.
There will be shopping too, through the silent auction of gift baskets and certificates, and fashion-watching, since team members have been encouraged to dress as though they’re living in the ’50s, the “decade of hope,” Van Ausdle said.
She also urged people who have lost someone to cancer, and those who have recently received a diagnosis, to come.
“Just your presence there,” she said, “is a great uplifter. There are so many people out there who understand what you’re going through.”
“We may be low in numbers,” Murphy added. “But we definitely make up for that with high spirits.”
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SEQUIM — After a full day of harvesting lavender in her sun-splashed field, Mary Borland will join friends for a Saturday night of remembering.
Borland owns Olympic Lavender Farm, one of the first operations to turn Sequim into the trademarked lavender capital of North America.
She and her husband, Steve, hoping to preserve the Dungeness Valley’s peaceful and open spaces, began planting the herb in the late 1990s, and together they helped shepherd this place to what it is today. Over the past decade, they have added more varieties of lavender to their certified organic farm, built a gift shop and welcomed thousands of Sequim Lavender Festival fans.
And every August, they went into the fragrant rows to harvest and bundle.
In late 2007, Steve was diagnosed with brain cancer. He underwent treatment at the Olympic Medical Cancer Center in Sequim and managed to work on the farm during 2008’s Lavender Festival.
But five months ago, Steve lost his fight with the disease.
On Saturday, Mary will take part in the Sequim Relay for Life for the first time.
The American Cancer Society fundraiser starts at noon on the Sequim High School football field; Mary figures she’ll get there around 6 p.m., since she’ll be working on the farm until at least 5.
“I haven’t done much” to gather pledges for the relay, Mary said.
Donated to OMC
She’s been busy, after all. During this year’s Lavender Festival, people teemed through her fields, gathering with great enthusiasm — and Mary decided to donate all of her you-pick proceeds to the Olympic Medical Center: $1,700 in the three days of the festival.
“I’d like it to go to patients who need money for gas or electric bills” and other basic expenses while they’re in treatment, she said.
Right after Steve died, Mary wondered whether she could get through the festival and harvest without him.
“It was so overwhelming,” she said.
But she’s made it into the final month or so of the lavender season and is welcoming more visitors to the Olympic farm than ever.
“I have people come from Hong Kong, from Norway . . . and every day, I meet somebody from Texas.”
This Saturday night, she’ll take a break with friends, including Cheryl Daniels, who invited her to join her Relay for Life team, named Pass the Hope.
“These girls go all out,” Mary said. Last year, she visited the field during the relay and found her friends had set up an elaborate campsite that looked like a small house.
After the relay, she’ll plunge back into her lavender fields to reap, bundle, transplant and show her visitors how an organic farm grows.
“I’m hoping it’s busy through August,” Mary said, adding that she’ll probably close after Labor Day on Sept. 7.
“I wish Steve was here, helping,” she said. “He was a fanatic about neatness.”
Fortunately, Mary added, she has an excellent summer staff, including Sequim High School students and alumnae Chase and Quinn O’Neil, Heather Smith and Anna LeBeaume.
Looking out over her breeze-cooled field of blooms, Mary smiled a little.
“The farm looks good,” she said.
Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
