Thousands Unite as One to Tell Congress “I Care and I Vote”

On Sept. 19, 2002, Chuck Byrne, a member of the UAMS Library’s Technical Support staff, along with hundreds of thousands of other American Cancer Society volunteers gathered in Washington, D.C. to urge Congress to make health care a national priority at the Relay For Life® Celebration on the Hill. Representing all 50 states and each of the 435 Congressional districts, three thousand “Relay Community Ambassadors” and thousands of others told Congress that more needs to be done to promote research, education and prevention. Chuck was an Ambassador who represented the citizens of Arkansas.

“Celebration is the cumulative voice of millions of volunteers sending a message to our elected leaders that cancer and health related issues are in their own backyards.” said Chuck Byrne, who is also a ten year volunteer with the American Cancer Society. Relay For Life® Celebration on the Hill is a grassroots event celebrating cancer survivorship and empowering survivors and others to advocate for laws that will help people fight cancer.

The 12-hour day opened at 10 a.m. with a special “survivors lap” around the Reflecting Pool. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson addressed the group in the afternoon. Ambassadors met with their Representatives and Senators throughout the day. They asked legislators to complete doubling of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget this year, fully fund the National Cancer Institute (NCI), commit needed resources to the new National Cancer Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities at the NIH, and substantially increase funding for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Highlights included a candle lighting “luminaria” ceremony held at dusk with 17,000 luminarias lining the reflecting pool four times. These lights honored cancer survivors and remembered those who lost their battles. Another highlight was the arrival of the Celebration Bus. The shrink-wrapped bus gathered more than 135,000 signatures on its exterior during its seven-month trip through the continental United States. So many people lent their names to the panels, the bus was wrapped nine times to make room for more signatures.

Relay For Life, the Society’s signature activity and the single largest non-profit fundraiser in the world is a unique overnight event. It offers everyone in a community an opportunity to fight cancer by forming teams to walk, run or otherwise move around a track to demonstrate their resolve to eliminate cancer as a major public health problem. This year, more than 3,300 Relay For Life events were held all over the country, raising $245 million for the American Cancer Society’s research, education, advocacy and service programs. A total of 2.25 million people participated, including 450,000 cancer survivors. Relay events were also held in 9 different countries around the world.