Team East Coast Raises Over $8,000 for Relay for Life!

By Alanna Maki

Team East Coast Martial Arts attended its first Relay for Life event on June 8^th. 

The American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life is held once a year. The Relay lasts for 18 hours and represents one day in the life of a person with cancer. Each Team has to have at least one member on the track at all times for 18 hours. Money is raised throughout the year by different teams and benefits the American Cancer Society.  For those who don’t know, the Society helps fund research of new medicines and has support services for people who have cancer and their families. Some of the support services they have are:   The “Hope Lodge” which is a free temporary place to stay for a cancer patient and their caregiver when their course of treatment takes them out of town, Rides to treatments, and support groups.

 The opening speech was given by our own Steve Hindman. It was very inspirational and encouraged many.

Then the opening lap was made by the survivors.  Here is Mr Hindman and his mom Joanne walking the survivor lap.

Our team had 4 “Endurance Walkers” These are people who walk the track for the entire 18 hours, and get one 10 minute break every hour.

A Big round of applause for our walkers who were Brian Geiser, KJ Shaheen, Jessica Offineer, and Scottie Moritz. 

Another fun part of the event was the “Miss Relay Contest” One man from the team dresses up like a woman and lip syncs to a song. Our “Miss Relay” was Fred Poinar.

He did look very lovely as Miss Relay, even if he did forget to shave.  Will we have a new “Miss Relay” next year, or will Mr Poinar not want to give up his title?

Still being a good sport, instructor Fred Poinar presents his 'Miss Relay Award' to Steve Hindman.

On Saturday we had our morning MMAFit class outdoors at the event!

 Thank you to everyone who came out, volunteered, walked, donated and supported through thoughts and prayers. We CAN Submit Cancer Together.

The event has raised over $60,000 and Team East Coast raised over $8,000!