Volunteers needed to lead ‘Relay for Life’

PALMER — Last year, the Mat-Su Borough raised $143,000 to help fund cancer research.

Relay for Life Specialist Kinsey Jacobs said an organizational meeting is planned next week to recruit volunteers and begin planning for the 2014 Relay for Life event in the Valley.

“We had a wonderful committee last year,” she said. “But a lot of them have chosen to retire and we need a new crop of volunteers to lead the effort.”

Jacobs said anyone who wants to volunteer for Relay, or who wants to learn more about the event, should attend a meeting from 6 to 7 p.m., Nov. 7 at Snodgrass Hall in Room 103 at Mat-Su College.

She said a core group of six to 12 volunteers are needed who can make a yearlong commitment to serve on the Relay board, but volunteers with less time to give are also appreciated.

“I’m willing to take on anyone who is willing to donate an hour, a weekend or a month,” Jacobs said.

She said people she’s talked to in the Mat-Su community — from survivors to schools — want to keep Relay for Life in the Valley, but without that core group of volunteers to lead the effort, the annual fundraiser that drew 554 participants last year is in jeopardy of cancelation.

“I know Mat-Su wants to keep Relay, it’s just a matter of finding those core volunteers,” she said.

Jacobs said the American Cancer Society has invested all of the money raised here last year to continue cancer research. In part, Mat-Su’s funds helped fund a $627,000 research grant to Melany Cueva at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Since 1946, the American Cancer Society — the largest source of nonprofit, non-governmental cancer research funding in the U.S. — has invested about $3.8 billion in cancer research grants, Jacobs said.

Last year in the Mat-Su, the American Cancer Society provided 421 services to 150 patients and caregivers. Of these, 106 were recently diagnosed with cancer and 31 were uninsured or on Medicaid.

Mat-Su residents also made 150 calls to the American Cancer Society’s cancer information line at (800) 227-2345, visited cancer.org 5,061 times and used resources from the Survivors Network 1,479 times.

For more information, contact (907) 273-2072.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.