Two women will walk separate paths this June, each with her own reasons but united by a determination to join the fight against cancer.
North Saanich’s Julia Velikovsky, 29, and her extended family will walk in the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life on June 14 at City Centre Stadium in Langford.
Velikovsky’s group will walk the track overnight, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Two weeks later, on June 21, Victoria’s Alyssa Robertson, 24, and about 10 of her friends will step onto the track at Victoria High School, for another 12-hour Relay for Life. But this group will walk during daylight hours, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The Canadian Cancer Society is providing two venues this year for people who want to join the relay to battle cancer: The traditional overnight walk and a new one during the day.
For Velikovsky, the event will mark the 11th time she has walked in the annual relay and collected pledges for the Canadian Cancer Society.
Her relays began when an aunt was being treated for breast cancer. Her aunt survived.
But in the years since, another aunt was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died. And there is still the memory of her grandfather, who died from pancreatic cancer in 1991.
“It’s pretty close with all of us in my family, on both sides,” Velikovsky said in an interview.
So when her relay team assembles at City Centre Stadium — including aunts, cousins, her husband, a niece, nephew, her mom now working in Fort McMurray, Alta., and her dad, retired in Oliver — they will walk under the team name Family Reasons.
It’s become an annual family event, with even the little ones stepping out, determined to prove themselves. But they usually fall asleep in the family tent by 3 a.m.
But for Robertson, the daylight relay at Vic HIgh offers a better way to keep up their energy.
The daylight relay means the event can have a noisier, festival-type atmosphere throughout the 12 hours to keep everybody’s spirits high.
“That’s our plan,” said Robertson. “Higher energy, more activities, but it’s still the same principle: walking all 12 hours in remembrance and support.”
She said her team, the Super Speedwalkers, is mostly made up of friends, from Victoria and Campbell River, where Robertson attended high school.
Robertson’s remembrance this year will be for the father of one of her best friends from Campbell River, who was diagnosed last year with lung cancer and has since died.
“It was really hard to watch him go through it and to watch my best friend deal with it,” Robertson said.
The annual Relay for Life is the Canadian Cancer Society’s biggest fundraising event, attracting about 200,000 walkers from 496 communities in 2013, raising about $51 million.
In B.C. and the Yukon, about 11,000 people from 49 communities raised $4.2 million last year.
Monica Dhawan, co-ordinator for the Vancouver Island Relay, said the annual event raises money for three areas: cancer research, cancer-prevention work and support for cancer patients.
The relays always have three ceremonies. The start is marked by a high-energy kickoff in support of those battling cancer.
The ending is upbeat, honouring the determination to keep up the fight against cancer.
In the middle, a luminary ceremony is more solemn, as people light candles in remembrance of people who have died.
For information, go to relayforlife.ca.