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The Pine River-Backus Area Relay For Life was forced to move indoors due to our rainy season in central Minnesota. Fortunately, the survivors, teams, and community were very flexible.

The teams quickly set up in the commons, the luminary bags were placed in the gym, and 33 survivors showed up for the opening ceremony. The survivors took a couple of opening laps around the gym at the end of the opening ceremony and got the event started on an uplifting note. The 33 survivors totaled 381 years of survivorship which averages out to 11.87 years of survivorship. The survivors, teams, and community members then spent time enjoying the food and games at the indoor campsites and checking out the silent auction items. We held an abbreviated luminary ceremony, encouraged all to take a few laps around remembering our loved ones and then wrapped up for the evening.

I heard several team members comment that it is not the same when we can't light the luminaries and that is very true. It is a very beautiful site to see the track lined with the luminaries. It is even more beautiful when you walk around the track and there are more "in honor of" luminaries for a cancer survivor then the "in memory" luminary bags. The team members were given an option to pick up any special bags before the remainder of the bags were picked up. We will save all the luminaries from this year and put them out next year. The track will be a beautiful path next year![[In-content Ad]]

We would like to thank all those that participated in the opening ceremony especially our survivors. Jim Machacek was the Master of Ceremonies, the Invocation was delivered by Pastor Tim Walker from the Assembly of God Church, the Fraser Nelson American Legion Post # 613 Color Guard of Pine River presented the American Flag, and the National Anthem was sung beautifully by Cheryl Crosby. Katie Anderson read a piece entitled, "Why We Relay". Thank you to the teams and our survivors for being part of the Opening Ceremony.

We appreciate our Logo Corporate sponsor, Hunt Utilities Group, for their seventh year of sponsorship and our Lane Sponsors, Essentia Health and Pelican Square. The Banner Sponsor was Pine River State Bank, and our Mission Sign Sponsors were Dairy Queen, Landis+Gyr, and the Pine River Lions. There were many other in-kind and corporate sponsors, without their support, we could not do this event.

This year's event had 102 walkers, $3,475 in corporate sponsorship money, $12,859.81 in team money for a current total of $16,334.81. There will be some funds that will be turned in yet this week. To all who make this possible and for joining the teams in the fight against cancer, we are grateful.

We will try again next year to be outside and light all our luminaries! Please contact Tina Grewe at 568-6084 if you want to form a team for next year.

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