Contributed by Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design

In March of 2008 my daughter and I created a Skaneateles High School team of Moms and daughters and attended the Syracuse University Relay for Life overnight event at the Carrier Dome. Our team alone raised over $800 and the event itself ,with all of the teams that participated, raised $160,000.

This was an amazing, moving, inspiring and selfless evening. The girls got a lot out of attending the event and as we were leaving at 6AM the next morning they were asking if we could do it again the next year. This year the event will take place on Saturday, March 28th and go all night again. We have our team started and over half of the girls from last year signed up as well as a few new ones. Here is the link to our team’s page:

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/skaneateles

Being a part of this event is a wonderful opportunity for our local girls to see beyond their day-to-day problems that seem so important to them (as is the case with most high schoolers) and get a real sense of life, loss, struggle, community, and selfless caring for others. Many of them were really touched by the Luminaria Walk where the entire Carrier Dome goes dark and the border of the green is lit up with luminaria bags that have individual names of cancer victims as well as survivors.

I’m writing this article for two reasons:

1. To share an amazing event with our community and keep you updated on our Skaneateles High School Team’s progress at Relay for Life SU.

2. Personally ask you to help us to raise funds for our team, it’s really easy and if just a few people would share the link above and donate even $5 it would be amazing how much we could raise. Cut and paste the link and send it to all of your family, friends, coworkers, etc. or just help us out by donating yourself. It would truly mean a lot to have the extended support of our community for this event.