Good Morning Relayers
It was such a wonderful 19 hours with so many survivors, caregivers, participants and sponsors this past weekend. We finished packing up Relay for another year, headed home to think about how many lives were impacted by your hard work over these past 365 days and reflected on what went as planned and what did not. We would like to take this time to address the issues with the luminaria ceremony.
A volunteer spends a good portion of the day (at least 5-6 hours) entering all of the names of our loved ones. The names of those we have lost and those who have heard the terrible words, “You have Cancer” and are still here fighting today. We are thankful to this volunteer and so many others.
Unfortunately, an issue took place as the list was getting finished up, sorted and printed. This issue delayed the ceremony start. As the reading of the names began, it became clear to many (including the ones reading the names) something was not right. The first and last names were mistakenly mismatched. We convened and decided it was best to stop the ceremony.
The entire ELT once again apologizes for this mistake. So many of us were deeply hurt knowing such an impactful and meaningful ceremony did not go as planned. However, as I walked the silent lap, one of our ELT came to me and spoke some words that could not be more true. “We can’t do anything about what has already happened. It’s what we do to fix the issue that will mean the most.” She is absolutely correct.
That being said, Richard originally said that we would correct the list and post it to Facebook. ELT members quickly decided that posting a list was not meaningful enough. Another volunteer/ELT member went home with all of the forms and reported back at 3:30am the new list of names was complete.
HERE IS WHERE WE NEED YOUR HELP – We will be recording a new reading of the names with a slide show of pictures from the luminaria ceremony. We ask that you submit any and all pictures you may have from the ceremony to Lisa by Wednesday, June 29th at 5pm. They can be sent to lisa.yourbestlife@gmail.com We will then be posting a video of the new ceremony to social media and sending it out to all registered 2022 participants.
Again, we deeply apologize this happened and will take every step to make sure it does not happen again moving forward.
THANK YOU ALL for everything you do to support the mission of the American Cancer Society.
Richard, Ken, Lisa
Source: https://web.facebook.com/rutlandrfl/posts/pfbid036NL2GhtUKAxYtAAa2Gu3KLWaQN9ktkeBLSwF3eK6RSkp8c8JrL3GHf9RtzgiWChbl
