The JayWalkers--Relay For Life

Friday night was the big day--Relay for Life in Mason City! In case you have missed it, some college friends put together the JayWalkers group in honor of our buddy Jay Balek and we raised about $2000 for the American Cancer Society in the past two months! So we headed up to MC for the event. I am so proud of our team--we had a great time!

Festivities started in the rain, so our campsite (and most of the evening's activities) were inside NIACC. Early in the evening we probably had upwards of 25 JayWalkers supporters and we were rocking our sweet shirts. They read: The JayWalkers...walking until there is no TUMORrow! The colors were also strategically chosen: gray for brain cancer and the orange and black for Wartburg. Our team member Scott designed them... if you're interested in purchasing one, we ordered extras!
The event was well attended at first, and the rain let up enough for us to have the luminary ceremony outside and they burned all night. There were at least 3 luminaries for Jay! We sold glow sticks and Jay and Lauren's families were both there at the beginning. And after the luminary ceremony, the crowd really thinned out.

We started to hit a wall around 12:30 am. Our board game was not holding our attention so we headed out to the walking path for some fresh air. Somehow we got to playing follow the leader and had too much fun--we probably played for at least an hour and a half! We were all sweaty and rejuvenated. We probably wouldn't have stopped, but the organizers were asking us to come inside for karaoke.

By 2 am, our team of 10 remaining JayWalkers (Jay's cousins and uncle walked until about 3) was about 1/3 of the remaining Relay for Lifers. We brought our energy to the karaoke with some audience participation and some beautifully choreographed renditions of Mariah Carey's "Hero" and Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." I'm not sure who was laughing more--us or the audience. And I think our "Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire" rap was almost as good as Kristyn and Anne's Spice Girls!

Closing ceremonies were supposed to be at 5:30, but the organizers asked us to help pick up the luminaries around 4--we were the only non-organizers still at the Relay. We had a lot of fun and the seven of us had a great time bonding. I am so proud of our team for being the last team standing and for trying to help everyone else have as much fun as we were having.

They told us the relay raised $130,000! If you didn't donate and still want to, it's not too late! And thanks to all that donated! We really appreciate it!!!