2011 Relay For Life Was a Success

The 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis was held on Friday, April 15 at the Hill Country Galleria Mall.  As always and because of the new location there were some glitches, but nobody aside from the Planning Committee seemed to notice.

After having the survivors and their families and caregivers start the first lap the Lake Travis Jazz Ensemble kicked off the entertainment.  A good crowd gathered in the Amphitheater to watch and listen.  Then other Relay For Life participants started walking the make-shift track.

I don't have final numbers and will probably not for a while, but my guess is that we had around a dozen cancer survivors, 25 or so teams, over 200 participants and we probably raised around $30,000.

As always, the Luminaria Ceremony was excellent.  The Lake Travis High School students who planned that part of Relay did a great job reading various parts of the ceremony including transforming Hope to Cure.

Want to see more event photos?  Visit my 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis photos page.

Coldwell Cares Relay For Life Fundraising Event

The team from Coldwell Banker Lake Travis office has a 2011 Relay For Life team that has already raised loads of money for Relay For Life and they're at it again. 

On April 7, Coldwell Cares will supply guest bartenders at Johnny Fins floating restaurant and bar in Lakeway from 4 PM until 8 PM.  The bar tending agents will donate all tips to the 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis.  Johnny Fins will serve food and drinks and it sounds like a lot of fun.  Johnny Fins is located at 16405 Clara Van on Lake Travis.  Click the previous link for a map.

At 7 PM there will also be a team captain meeting at Johnny Fins.  This is a time that team captains can drop by for registration material, have questions answered or drop off funds their teams have raised.

Students and Relay For Life

The 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis is right around the corner and the planning committee has been doing a great job prepping for the event.  Many people have participated in many events, but not many understand what happens behind the scenes.

Relay For Life, which is the signature event for the American Cancer Society is planned and carried out by one staff partner from the American Cancer Society and a group of area volunteers.  I have been event Chair several times and on the planning committee since 2002.  One of the most significant things I have done is coach Lake Travis High School students on the planning committee.  Students from the LTHS Interact Club, which I have been advisor for, have been on the planning committee as long as I can remember.

So just what are the students doing this year and who are they?  Logistics is being handled by an LTHS sophomore and a freshman.  These guys are responsible for mapping the amphitheater and roads around it at the Hill Country Galleria Mall, where Relay For Life will take place.  The night of the event, they will direct people to their camp sites and making sure they park in the designated garage.  They have also put together a rain plan and have mapped a track in a parking garage in case of rain.

Aside from planning Relay For Life in general, the Luminaria Ceremony is probably the largest task to plan and carry out.  An LTHS senior and a are taking this on.  This ceremony takes place just after dark and requires around a minimum of dozen people to sell and decorate luminaria bags, place them around the amphitheater, conduct the ceremony and then clean up later at night.  These kids  have also come up with a rain plan.

Cancer Education and Awareness are being handled by two freshman.  As part of the goal of Relay For Life is to raise awareness of and educate people about cancer, these girls will direct activities to make sure people learn more about cancer risks, treatment and prevention.

An LTHS senior is coordinating entertainment.  Thanks to this senior’s connections the Lake Travis H.S. Jazz Ensemble will provide entertainment until around 10:00 PM.  After that he has arranged for quieter acoustic acts to play because of a city sound ordinance.

The high school usually has quite a few teams participating in Relay For Life.  A senior  is responsible for high school team recruiting.  In past events there have been as many as 20 LTHS teams with over 150 participants from the high school.  The students typically raise between $10,000 and $20,000 so student teams are a very significant part of the event.

One thing I like to do every year is to pair an older student with a younger student to run the subcommittees.  Ideally a senior of junior with Relay For Life planning committee experience will train his or her replacement for the following year’s event.  This is an excellent way to make sure the parts of the event students handle go well and it provides continuity for future events.

The 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis will be held at the Hill Country Galleria Mall from 7:00 PM on April 15 until 7:00 AM the following morning.  As of March 29, 17 teams registered online and over $13,000 has been raised.  The top team so far is Coldwell Cares with over $10,000 in funds raised.  The top student team at LTHS right now is the Cavelletts.  The girls have raised $525 so far.

Coldwell Banker Donates BIG Bucks to Relay

The Coldwell Banker Lakeway office has an agent who put together a Coldwell Banker team for Relay For Life of Lake Travis last year and she has struck again.  Stacy Nelson and many of her coworkers got together and put together a wonderful event that happend last night. 

The event was held at the Hill Country Galleria Mall at Twin Liquors.  There was wonderful food from local restaurants, wine from some of Twin Liquor's vendors and lots of fun.  There was a great silent auction, drawings for some great gifts and an awesome raffle.  I "worked" the event with our American Cancer Society staff partner, Lyndsay Varner and a coworker of hers, Paige DeLeon.  We got to talk to people about Relay and about services that the ACS offers.

The really fun thing was sitting at the table with our accounting chair, Shelly Compton.  As rafffle tickets were sold and people made general donations, the money kept rolling in.  The event took in a total of around $9,400 and more is still trickling in.

So other real estate offices in the Lake Travis area and other teams that will sign up for the 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis, will you be able to catch Coldwell Banker?

The Lake Travis Relay For Life has never started this early and has never seen a fundraising start like this.  Thank you Coldwell Banker, Twin Liquors, Mandolas, the Iron Cactus, Papa Murphys Pizza and anyone I may have left out for an awesome start!

2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis

The very early stages of planning are on for the 2011 Relay For Life of Lake Travis. Carolyn Loran and Jan Fontenot will co-chair the event again. I will serve as a sort of at large planning committee member. Our new staff partner with the American Cancer Society is Lyndsay Varner. Lyndsay has been participating in various Relay events since she was young and she chaired the UT event last year.

The Lake Travis High School Interact Club will undoubtedly take on Logistics, the Luminaria Ceremony and Cancer Education and Awareness again. Having said that, the committee can still use help. If anyone out there is interested, please leave a comment here with your contact information or email me.

The event has tentatively been scheduled for Friday, April 15 at the Hill Country Galleria Mall in Bee Cave. This needs to be confirmed by mall management and we need to check it again school schedules. I will post the date when it is confirmed.

2010 Relay For Life Lake of Travis Photos

Click the title of this post to see event photos.

We Made Our Goal!

I picked up an email the other day stating that the 2010 Relay For Life met its financial goal. We raised almost $20,000 online and took in enough offline to make it to $25,000. Congratulations to all participants and members of the planning committee.

We Did It!

The rain held off until around 9:30, but it did rain and we had our event anyway. I think everyone was pretty skeptical about holding Relay For Life in a parking garage, but it actually worked out very well. People walked and walked and it was pretty loud, with sound echoing throughout the concrete structure, but it was manageable. Luminaria bags were set up and the "track" was in between the bags and the exterior wall campsites. Entertainment was provided by an acoustic guitar duo who played and sang throughout the event. We extended the event from the original end time of 9:30 until 10:00, but most people left by 9:45.

A big thank-you goes to event planners, the LTHS Interact Club for providing so many students to pull it off and to the Hill Country Galleria Mall for allowing us to use the parking garage. Having to call the event off for the second straight year because of rain would have been terrible I think everyone was thrilled that we did not have to do that.

Thanks go out to all cancer survivors who attended, to team captains and all participants.

Come back to this post later in the week for a link to photos from the 2010 Relay For Life of Lake Travis.

Relay For Life Rain Plan - The Event Will Be Held Regardless

The forecast is calling for a good chance of rain during the day of the 2010 Relay For Life of Lake Travis. This is kind of ironic because we were rained out last year.

If it rains, we move inside:

If it looks like we will get significant rain, we will hold Relay in parking garage A, which is by Dillard's. The event will be abreviated and will run from 7:00 until 9:30. Logistics are being worked out tonight.

Camp sites will be parking spaces by the outside walls of the parking garage. The track will be marked with sidewalk chalk. As this will be a shortened event if we move inside, teams may chose not to have full campsites. Lawn chairs may be enough, but that is up to teams.

There may not be trash cans in the garage. EVERYTHING brought in must be taken out and we need to leave the garage as we found it.

For parking, please park in the garage on the level below where the event will be held.

We realize that it will be a bit like having Relay in a cave, but at least we will be able to have the Survivor lap and the Luminaria Ceremony. It will be etter to hold a shortened event than not to have one at all

Questions? Call an event organizer:

Carolyn Loran 261-8742
Jan Fontenot 968-8808
Kristy Hilboldt 445-8556
Sam Chapman 293-2422

By the way, we can thank the Lake Travis High School Interact Club for this rain plan. They met, spoke with people at the mall, got all of this arranged and they will tackle the logistics of getting everything set up. Amazing kids!