The beautiful candle-lit “luminaria ceremony,” the “survivors dinner,” folks huffing it around the high school track all night in the name of raising money to fight cancer — the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life has become a celebrated annual event in Ridgefield, as in other communities around the nation.
But organizers at the cancer society don’t want the relay to become static, lose its energy. So, they plan to rethink it for the coming year.
“We are looking to revamp the event and engage all aspects of the Ridgefield community,” said Kate Broderick, a Relay for Life specialist with the cancer society,
“The relay is all about Ridgefield this year. It’s whatever people would like to see. We’re really open to a lot of changes, depending on what kind of feedback we get.”
Ms. Broderick, who oversees Relay for Life fund-raising events in Ridgefield, Wilton, Brookfield and at WestConn, is inviting interested members of the community to meet and discuss how Ridgefield’s Relay for Life might be improved.
The meeting is in two weeks, on Thursday, Sept. 18, starting at 6:30 at the Ridgefield Firehouse on Catoonah Street.
“We’re looking to speak to a lot of people in town, hear their feedback, get their ideas, get a good idea of what they want to see at the relay this year,” Ms. Broderick said.
“We’d love to get some creative minds from town.”
Nationwide, the Relay for Life raised about $305 million this year, with 150,000 teams and 1.7 million participants, including 250,000-plus cancer survivors.
In Ridgefield, the relay’s fund raising has gone down some the last few years.
“It’s been declining,” Ms. Broderick said.
“Last year we made $60,000, and the previous year had been about $100,000,” she said.
“That’s why we’re trying to revamp it this year, get more people involved.”
The Relay for Life still draws a good number of participants.
“Last year we had about 300 — registered, registered survivors, pre-registered, people who walked the opening lap and took part in the luminaria ceremony.”
The participants were members of some 40 teams who banded together to raise money — families, workplace friends, kids from the high school.
Although Ms. Broderick will be here to listen during the meeting at the firehouse, she and colleagues at the cancer society have some ideas for how the Relay for Life might be improved.
“Pretty much we’re looking to shorten the event, probably not go overnight, and change the location to something a little more community-based,” she said.
The all-night aspect makes it tough for people.
“If we do it until 11 or midnight, people aren’t spending the rest of their weekend catching up on sleep,” Ms. Broderick said.
In trying to make it “more community-based,” she’s thinking of moving it closer to the center of town, rather than out at the high school.
The Relay for Life has traditionally been on a weekend shortly before the end of school.
Whether that should be changed is also something Ms. Broderick hopes to get feedback on from townspeople.
“That’s one of the things we’d like to discuss with people,” she said. “We’re open to suggestions.”
But much of what makes the Relay for Life the event it has become — the walking, the survivor’s dinner, speeches, the luminaria ceremony — will likely remain.
“We’re looking to keep a lot of that,” Ms. Broderick said. “We’re looking to keep the walking aspect of it — although it won’t be around the track — as well as the survivor’s dinner in the beginning, opening ceremonies, luminaria ceremonies, closing ceremonies.
“We also want to keep the campsite feel, maybe not staying overnight, but tents and tables to do on-site fund raising,” she said.
The idea, of course, is to make the event better, bigger — a more successful fund-raiser, and that means making it more attractive to larger numbers of people.
“We’re looking to engage the entire community. We’re hoping to get more adults involved, more businesses involved, and more families,” Ms. Broderick said.
“It’s become a youth-based event at the high school. That’s one of the reasons we’re looking to change the location — more centralized, somewhere in town.”
In addition to discussing changes to the Relay for Life, Ms. Broderick and the cancer society are recruiting people to help organize and run the event.
“We’re looking to get new committee members in town involved,” she said.
“If anyone’s interested, they can definitely reach out to me — or come to the meeting on the 18th.
Ms. Broderick may be phoned at 203-563-1514, or e-mailed at kate.broderick@cancer.org.
But she hopes to meet Ridgefielders in the meeting at the firehouse on Sept. 18.
“All different community members,” she said. “I’d love to see parents, business owners, high school students, families.”