Relay For Life Holds Meeting to Discuss Plans for the New Year

American Cancer Staff Partner, Angela David, and Bank Financial employees, Denise Drada and Sondra Pendleton, came together late Tuesday evening in order to review their 2011 goals for Homewood-Flossmoor's upcoming Relay For Life (RFL) event.

As the meeting kicked off, David’s top priority was emphasizing the need for what she calls “community cultivation.”

“We want to have former team participants, survivors, local officials and trustees come together in order to nail down what we need to be doing in the community, because we went from being a $84,000 [event] to an $11,000 event," said David. "We not only need to ask them what we need to do differently, but also figure out what more can we do to increase our presence in the community.”

Reaching out to local businesses, acquiring volunteers to help post signs up around the area and recruiting more committee and team members were additional ideas brought up by David as a potential way to increase awareness about the event.

After all items on the agenda were discussed, David then opened the floor for feedback about last year's event.

All agreed that the children’s entertainment was “great” and there was a strong interest in having the same acts to come back this year. Some attendees expressed the need for “better signage”  to inform participants and attendees about items that would not be allowed inside of the campsite.

“When you use someone’s space you have to care for it like it is your own,” said Denise Drada. “So when you come into their space and misbehave it is not only a reflection on that particular person but it also makes the group who is hosting the event look bad.”

Final items discussed included whether or not the area would be sprayed for bugs and the establishment of an appropriate time for bands to stop performing at the campsite.

Future H-F Relay For Life meetings will be held at the Ingalls Care Center.