The 2020 Relay for Life of Barton County, set for 5-11 p.m. Sunday in downtown Great Bend’s Jack Kilby Square, will have a familiar feel, but there will be changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers of the annual cancer-fighting fundraising event said.

“This year is going to be a little bit different,” said Event Lead Kandi Wolf. But, the bottom – raising money to find a cure for cancer, and honoring cancer victims and survivors – remains the same.

“We wanted to raise what money we could,” she said. “Cancer doesn’t stop, regardless of what else is going on the world.”

The American Cancer Society, the parent organization for relays around the globe, only allowed in-person relays to start in July. But, local relays have to have the donations they collect turned in by the end of August.

“Obviously, fundraising has been hindered this year,” Wolf said. Still, “everyone has worked really hard to put this together in a short amount of time.”

In addition, “the community has been very supportive,” she said. “Everyone’s belts are tight and we’ve appreciated anything we’ve gotten.”

Sure, the event is on a Sunday instead of a Friday. Sure, it may be a little shorter than relays of yore.

“But,there will be a lot of things that are the same as in years past,” she said. There will be an opening ceremony, campsites and fundraisers, music provided by a DJ and dancing, a scavenger hunt, and a lighting of luminaries.

Other events and games are in the works.

The relay will be confined to the south half of the square, however. And, there will be no free meal for cancer survivors, but food vendors will be on site.

And, as is becoming common during this pandemic, “we will follow the Centers for Disease and Control guidelines,” Wolf said. There will be masks, social distancing and hand sanitizer.

They plan to have parking places available along Main Street so folks can watch the opening from their cars. And, while seating will be available, they encourage attendees to bring their own chairs so they can distance as they feel comfortable.

There may be some drawing tickets for the washer-dryer set donated by Great Bend Appliance available Sunday night, she said. And, luminaries will still be available for purchase, they just need the names before 8:30 p.m. so they can be read aloud.

“We definitely want people to come,” she said. 

It’s about tradition

This marks the 26th-annual relay in Barton County, and Wolf said they didn’t want to let that streak end. “We wanted to uphold that tradition, even if it looks a little different.

The lead team selected an Olympics theme this year, although it has not been able to capitalize on that as much as they would have liked. But, unlike the Olympics which were canceled this spring, this show is going on, she said.

Since 1985, the ACS’s Relay for Life has grown from one man – colorectal surgeon Dr. Gordy Klatt, who walked, jogged, and ran around a track in Tacoma, Wash., for 24 hours raising money for his local ACS unit. The following year, 340 supporters joined Klatt (who died in 2014 of heart failure) and Relay for Life was born. 

Relays are now the ACS’s major fundraiser and take place in 5,000 communities in the United States. And, each year, more than 4 million people in 26 countries take part. 

But, “it’s about more than raising money,” Peach said. “It is a chance for people to come together and share hope.”

The American Cancer Society was founded in 1913 in New York City as the American Society for the Control of Cancer. In 1945, the ASCC was reorganized as the American Cancer Society, and the modern era of research was started.

Barton County falls in the ACS’s North Division, which covers Kansas and nine other Midwestern and Northwestern states.