Children will have day at Relay
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on May 18, 2006 1:52 PM
More than 300 Wayne County children will pack the track Saturday at the Relay for Life, conducting their own walk to find a cure for cancer.
Kidswalk will be 9 to 10 a.m. at Wayne Community College. Children from birth to grade five can participate.
Chairman Dawn Potter said the new event provides a way for young children to participate and get involved in the Relay.
"Sometimes we tend to forget that cancer affects children just as much as it does adults," she said. "We want to get the word out to the public that cancer is the chief cause of death by disease in children between the ages of 1 and 14. There were 10,000 new cases of childhood cancer among children birth to 14 in 2005."
Children should arrive at 8:45 a.m. Gold's Gym personnel will help warm them up with some exercises and dance steps.
"At 9 a.m., they will line up on the track, and we'll have ribbon cutting. Two young children who are cancer survivors will cut the ribbon," Ms. Potter said.
Leading the children's walk will be several costumed characters including Scout from the Kinston Indians, the Chick-fil-A cow, the Andy man from Andy's and maybe even Ronald McDonald.
Ms. Potter said the theme for the first half of the walk will be "Hats On For A Cure." The children are asked to wear some type of hat.
"This is to emphasize that one in five children will develop skin cancer sometime in their life," said Ms. Potter.
The second half of the walk will be themed "Blow Away Cancer." Each child will receive a bottle of bubbles to blow as they walk.
She said that anytime during that hour, the children may take a break and play on inflatables, have their face painted, color with crayons or design with chalk.
At the end of Kidswalk, participants will receive a coupon for ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery.
Ms. Potter said that a lot of the elementary schools have formed teams for Kidswalk.
"Northwest School has about 60 children registered for the event," she said. "The computer operator at their school, Donna Lanier, was diagnosed with cancer three weeks ago, and the children are having her name put on the arm of their T-shirts and will be walking in honor of her. All of that has come about since the children registered for Kidswalk."
A T-shirt design contest for Kidswalk was held in the county's schools. Each school chose one design to submit to the contest. The winner was Tyesha Campbell, a third-grader at School Street School.
Other school winners were Davion Hardy, kindergarten, North Drive Elementary; Keyana Singleton, third grade, Brogden Primary; Eleanor Yarboro, fifth grade, Wayne County Day; Jessica Bass, second grade, Northwest Elementary; Lily Li, fifth grade, Spring Creek Elementary; Lizzie Yelverton, fifth grade, Northeast Elementary; Brianna Casto, second grade, Rosewood Elementary; Hannah Smith, fifth grade, Eastern Wayne Elementary; and Dashona Owens, fifth grade, Carver Elementary.
T-shirts for children participating in Kidswalk may be picked up Saturday morning before the start of the event.
Sponsoring Kidswalk are Goldsboro Pediatrics and Larry Bill Promotions.
Prior to Kidswalk, Wayne County's school children have been having a mini-Relay of their own to raise money for cancer research and local cancer support programs.