HANAPEPE — “It was pretty wild,” said Alton Miyamoto of the West Kaua‘i Hongwanji Mission, late Saturday night. “We had bon dance lessons and people were doing all kinds of things.” The bon dance lessons were just one of the
HANAPEPE — “It was pretty wild,” said Alton Miyamoto of the West Kaua‘i Hongwanji Mission, late Saturday night. “We had bon dance lessons and people were doing all kinds of things.”
The bon dance lessons were just one of the new things that opened up the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life at the Hanapepe Stadium, said Erika Sy, Community Development Manager of the American Cancer Society’s Kaua‘i Chapter.
Sy coordinated the Relay for Life in Hanapepe, one of two planned for this year. A Relay for Life for the North Shore is new for the ACS calendar and will be held on June 27 in Hanalei.
“I’m definitely going to check out the North Shore one,” said Peggy Alao, who was diagnosed with cancer in January and attended the Hanapepe event with her family.
“I have family who flew in from O‘ahu just to be able to attend this event,” said Alao, who is confined to a wheelchair due to her treatments. “They went all-out for this event — posters, banners, T-shirts, you name it.”
That group was named Team Peggy in honor of Alao and was just one of about 15 new teams to take in the Relay for Life, Sy said.
“The teams are still fundraising and, hopefully, we can make our goal of more than $200,000,” Sy said. “This year, we’re really missing Connie’s Fighters and Survivors, but everyone needs to take a rest. Last year, that team was a top fundraiser with more than $17,000 contributed.”
Sy said the downturn in the economy has a definite impact on this major fundraising project for the ACS.
“Our corporate sponsorships are down by about $20,000, but we have $118,000 entering the stadium and the teams are working hard to try and meet the goal,” the two-year veteran of organizing the Relay for Life said.
Another new facet for this year’s Relay, the 11th for American Cancer Society, is the honoring of individuals raising more than $1,000, Sy said. Those individuals were denoted by special green T-shirts.
“At the West Kaua‘i Hongwanji, they have at least three individuals who got green T-shirts,” Sy said. “They are a Platinum sponsor with more than $10,000 raised.”
Miyamoto said the big push came when the church sold tickets for flying saucers, the idea coming from Laurie Tateishi, the team captain for the hongwanji group, a longtime supporter of the ACS Relay for Life.
During that fundraiser, Takako Hashimoto said they sold more than 1,400 flying saucers, a treat normally reserved for the church’s bon dance where aficionados would wait for up to an hour in line to get their share.
“This is more like a carnival,” Alao said. “But it’s a good place to come and talk with friends and family and just look at the lights. It’s very peaceful.”
The lights come from special dedicatory luminaria created by families dedicating candlelit paper bags to members who lost the fight to cancer.
“I have family members who have had cancer,” said Kaua‘i Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., who was among the walkers marking the arrival of Sunday morning at midnight.
“There are employees in the county who have had cancer and there are others whose family members have had to deal with cancer. This is a fight we cannot afford to lose and I walk to fight back against cancer.”
Carvalho’s wife Regina is a nurse and has closer dealings with the disease that drew hundreds, if not thousands, of people to the darkened Hanapepe Stadium in a collective demonstration of the fight against cancer.
In October, the American Cancer Society will host its second annual Hoedown for Hope, a paniolo-themed fundraising event at the Kilohana Lu‘au Pavilion.
For more information, visit www.cancer.org.
