Relay For Life

At Shorecrest we take pride in organizing three school-wide community based service projects; a Food Drive supporting The Kind Mouse in the fall, the Holiday Gift Drive for children in the Guardian ad Litem program in the winter, and Relay For Life benefiting American Cancer Society (ACS) in the spring. We strive to have students take an active role in all three events so that our mission to have students develop a sense of responsibility for their community is fulfilled. The Food Drive and Relay are student-led and the Holiday Gift Drive is led by our Shorecrest Community Association. While many other service activities like blood drives, Habitat for Humanity and Helping Hands occur year-round, dozens of other service learning projects help focus the passion and energy of students, faculty and families to build stronger communities.  

Diego Duran-Medina, our Shorecrest Director of Service Learning, works with all community members to ensure “we are not counting hours but rather making our hours count.” Mr. Duran-Medina reminds us often that our service is not about ourselves as much as it is for those we are hoping to serve. At the same time, we realize that some of our Shorecrest Core Values are learned because of the service-learning activities of our students. In the past week I have witnessed students demonstrate Responsibility, Respect, Compassion and Knowledge during various service activities related to Relay For Life.

Seniors Jackie Barnes, Olivia Olson and Jordan Tralins have been models of student leadership in the organization and execution of Relay fundraising events this year. Our ACS leader, Jessica Sheets, has been there to support the students and has been gracious in letting our three senior leaders lead and involve the students and families who are most engaged in Relay.

On Friday, March 29, at 9:10am all students, faculty and staff will participate in our traditional opening lap to begin our Relay day. Later that afternoon, as school dismisses, teams will be setting up their fundraising and entertainment activities. If you are reading this message on Friday afternoon, I hope you will either stay and let your family participate in some of the activities or come back and enjoy the team events and the community-wide opening ceremony at 6pm or the thoughtful Luminaria Ceremony after dark around 9:30pm.

We Relay For Life because we believe in the possible cures that will save future generations from the challenges caused by cancer. We Relay because we want to give all those impacted by cancer Hope. We also Relay because we want our community to unite around our mission and develop a sense of responsibility for the community. When it comes to cancer, the “community” is worldwide; but as we hear each year, as far reaching cancer may be, it is very personal.

I am thankful to our student leaders, their families and to all the students and families who have organized teams to make Relay For Life a meaningful event for our community and a successful fundraiser for ACS. Over the past 14 years we have raised more than $1.2 million dollars in the fight against cancer. Join the effort.

Cheers!

Mike