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Lapping Illness: the Miami Shores Relay for Life

Posted on: Thursday, 6 April 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Dan Roblee, The Miami Herald

Apr. 6--Cancer is a deadly serious concern. But that doesn't mean fighting the disease can't be cause for joy.

For Sister Linda Bevilacqua, president of Barry University, that meant Italian dancing last Friday night at the Miami Shores Relay for Life, held at Barry's campus.

"The disk jockey played the tarantella for me!" Bevilacqua noted about 2 a.m. Saturday morning. "For two years I've been trying to teach people the tarantella."

Apparently, when people are shy, an all-night event is just the thing to loosen their inhibitions.

The Shores Relay For Life began at 6 p.m. Friday and ran until after daybreak Saturday, on the grassy roundabout in front of Barry's Cor Jesu chapel.

The culmination of months of planning and fundraising, it raised over $65,000 for the American Cancer Society, nearly doubling last year's total of $35,000, and this year's $38,000 goal.

According to Cancer Society representative Kristen Mathieson, who coordinated the event, 27 teams and about 2,000 people took part in making the third year of the local relay the most successful ever -- and perhaps the most silly.

With events like the Hula Hoop lap, the look-like-your-pet lap, karaoke, line dancing, a bounce house for youngsters and even a frozen T-shirt contest -- where teams competed to thaw and wear a soaked shirt that spent a day in a freezer -- there was something for everyone.

"We raise funds, and we raise fun," said event chairman John Beaubrun, Barry's Vice Provost for Information Technology and a leukemia survivor.

Mathieson said new Internet-driven fundraising, which allowed teams to create Web pages and sponsors to pledge online, made the task easier.

Still, teams did pledge to keep at least one walker on the track each hour of the event.

The Shores event did have its serious moments, including a luminaria ceremony on Friday. Candles ringing the track were lit in memory of loved ones who died of cancer or are currently battling the disease.

There was also the opening Survivors Lap, in which those who've beaten cancer shared the track with those currently undergoing treatment in a show of pride, joy and unity.

Beaubrun said he finds his greatest pleasure in walking with others.

"This year, I brought a man who was 86, had had cancer twice, and he came and walked the whole lap," Beaubrun said. "You can see you're not in this alone. You're in this with others, and know they're in it for you."

From its beginnings as a mostly Barry-driven event, the Miami Shores Relay For Life has broadened to include increasing numbers of area residents.

Teams of students from Doctors Charter School, North Miami Beach Senior High and a Miami Shores Boy Scout Troop were a strong presence. NMB student Junior Machado, 18, said he decided to walk because of two grandparents who died of cancer.

Teammate Stephanie Cano, also 18, said that even though she was graduating, she planned to make it a priority to come back next year. "I think if people knew it was like this, a lot more would come," she said. "We really had fun."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

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Source: The Miami Herald

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