AEDC to again participate in Relay for Life

  • Published
  • By Shawn Jacobs
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  This year's Relay for Life is being held April 29-30 at the Coffee County Fairgrounds, and AEDC employees will again participate in the fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

At Relay, teams of people camp out and take turns walking or running around a track. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event.

Dee Wolfe, education and training specialist at AEDC, coordinates the base's involvement in the event.

"When I arrived in October 2008, AEDC as a whole didn't know what Relay for Life was all about," Wolfe said. "I told my story of my battle with thyroid cancer and asked AEDC to come out and support me and the American Cancer Society by joining a team at Relay for Life. In 2009, two AEDC teams showed their support and raised more than $6,000. Last year, three AEDC teams raised over $10,000 for cancer research."

Wolfe said her life has been touched by cancer since she first told her story at AEDC.

"My Dad found out he had prostate cancer and went through treatment in 2009," she said. "Then in September 2010, I was once again told I had cancer and had surgery to remove it in October. Relay has meant a lot to me and my family since we first got involved in 2007, but each year it comes to mean more as cancer affects my family and me."

Relay starts at 6 p.m. Friday and ends at 6 a.m. Saturday. All team members do not have to be at the fairgrounds the entire night. Wolfe said, rather than having several teams this year, she and the previous team captains have discussed having just one big team.

If anyone needs more information about Relay or is interested in joining the team, contact Dee Wolfe at dee.wolfe@arnold.af.mil or (931) 454-4313 or Shawn Wolfe at shawn.wolfe@arnold.af.mil or (931) 454-7732 by the end of January.