JourneyOnline
Relay for Life is an eighteen hour team event that is held annually around Australia to raise money and awareness for The Cancer Council.
For the past four years, Hervey Bay Uniting Church have been a part of this event in their community and have worked hard in their fundraising efforts.
This year their team held a cake stall, karaoke night and collected cans under the guidance of their team captain and youth ministry trainee Gabi Crispin for the event that was held over the seventeenth and eighteenth of May.
“We see (Relay For Life) as a way that we can connect with the community as well as giving our young people a cause to get behind” explained Hervey Bay UCA minister Rev Brian Hoole.
“That’s primarily what taking part in this event is about, but it also gives our church an opportunity to let people know who we are and to enjoy fellowship with each other.”
Relay for Life teams are ten to fifteen people who take turns in walking around a running track throughout the entire eighteen hours.
Teams also take part in significant ceremonies, where Survivors are celebrated and those that have lost their lives to cancer are remembered.
The teams are drawn from numerous areas within the community and the Hervey Bay UCA team is no different.
“We always have a mix of people. Our teenagers are always interested but so are our forty year olds” said Mr. Hoole. “Several members of our church community are cancer survivors and others have been affected by cancer”.
Sunday services in the Hervey Bay region could certainly be interesting though after Relay For Life weekend, according to Rev Hoole.
“This year I had thirty minutes sleep and had to travel to take services at Burrum Heads and Howard which involves an hour’s travel all up. Previous years I have been in town. Either way I tend not to be thinking too clearly.”
Photo : Rev Brian Hoole (left) and the Hervey Bay Uniting Church Relay for Life team
