(Le Mars) — Friday night close to 150 people, both as individuals and as teams, participated in the annual cancer fundraiser, Relay For Life. As of midnight, the campaign was able to raise $27,000.
The participants walked around the track at Jim Lorenzen field in order to raise money and awareness of the deadly disease. One of the more visible teams was the Team Flockers, with nearly 20 members all dressed in pink coordinating T-shirts with their campsite littered with small plastic flamingo lawn ornaments. Shawn Schiefen, the team’s spokesperson explains why flamingos serve as the team’s mascot.
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Schiefen says the team members comprised of people from Le Mars and Sioux Center, and together as a team, they did fairly well in terms of raising money for cancer research.
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At the time of the interview, Team Flockers had walked approximately 30 miles. Schiefen says the Team Flockers want to spread the word the cancer awareness and to have fun at somebody’s expense by placing the sometimes thought of as an annoying lawn ornament on a designated front lawn.
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One of the highlight’s to last evening’s event was the lighting of the illuminaries that had surrounded the track, each in memory of someone that had lost their life to cancer. The illuminaries consisted of candles placed inside a bag that glowed. Also, the organization launched five “sky lanterns” which looked like a three-foot high hot air balloons. Each of the five sky lanterns lifted up several feet in the air and were visible for several miles.
