Greater Middletown Relay for Life Nets $83K for Fight Against Cancer

Five hundred and fifty people spent 24 hours camped out on Middletown's middle school track — each and every one of them focused on a single goal: fighting cancer.

This year’s 2012 raised $83,000 during the weekend, thanks to the dedication of 51 teams of all ages, and more than half — some 300 — under the age of 18. Each group set up a tent and camped out on the Woodrow Wilson track for 24 hours, keeping at least one member walking the track at all times — hence, the relay portion — to create a continuum in the fight against cancer.

The weather kindly cooperated this year. During most of the day Saturday, intermittent raindrops fell, and around 4 p.m., the warm sun shone through. By Sunday morning — which many of the teams saw with less than a couple hours’ sleep — it was warm and sunny, with a slight breeze.

When gates opened at noon Saturday, already $57,228 had been raised by participants through sponsorships and donations, according to Patti Nettis Deegan, publicity chair for the last 10 years.

“All this year, the committee did its own fundraising to offset event costs,” said chair Amy Hughes. “We found sponsors, sold ads in the program, collected change with pink and purple ‘hope pigs,” she said. “This is the biggest committee in at least five years,” said Hughes, a pert, indomitable and ebullient strawberry blonde who announced she is stepping down this year as event chair after three years at the helm.

Hughes told the crowd she has trained Becky Godwin, co-chairwoman, to take over the helm for the 2013 Relay for Life — an 11-month leadership commitment — after assuring those gathered that she’d still be on the committee and subsequent events.

People can have cancer 24 hours a day. This is our tribute to them,” Deegan said. Her 8-year-old grandson, Alex “Buddy,” who has been participating in the Relay for three years, is the youngest ever team captain and her granddaughter Kayleen, 13, who has been participating since she was 3 years old.

The Deegan family has been extraordinarily affected by cancer. “We are doing this for our grandparents, my mother and inlaws and husband, who is a cancer survivor. Throughout our extended family,” Deegan says, everyone has someone that has had cancer,” she said.

The Relay ended with raffle prize drawings and a monarch butterfly release. Each butterfly was "sponsored" or paid for by someone who had lost a loved one to cancer. The release was symbolic — for the hope for a cure for cancer — and was met with ohs!, ahs! and applause from those gathered.

The Greater Middletown Relay For Life serves much beyond Middletown — Middlefield, Durham, Portland, East Hampton, Cromwell and Rockfall.

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