Taking cancer laps

While cover band Crawling from the Wreckage growled out high-energy renditions of top-40 songs, children stayed cool by squirting each other with water guns as cancer survivors and supporters made laps around Robert E. Gross Park Saturday.

The field was enclosed by colorful tents and vendor booths for Burbank's fourth annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life, a 24-hour walk-a-thon aimed at raising money for cancer research and survivor support.

Cancer survivors took a lap alone or with their caretakers at the beginning of the day, and later on that evening participants lighted candles in remembrance of those lost to the illness.

Participants circled the grassy field and made pit stops to care for scrapes or take water breaks in the shade.

"I'm walking for her," said Sam Orender motioning to his wheel-chair-bound wife, Linda. "She did take the survivor's lap. She's a three-year survivor of brain cancer."

Sam Orender, who walked as part of a 25-person team of walkers called "Cancer Sucks," said he didn't even know the relay existed until this year, when his neighbor Maria Rynn told him about it and asked him to co-captain a team with her.

Rynn, a survivor of gastric cancer who is now cancer-free, was a big help to him when his wife fell ill, Sam Orender said. But when Rynn contracted the cancer herself, the roles of caregiver and recipient were briefly switched, with Orender providing mental support for Rynn.

"She helped me then I helped her," he said. "This has been quite a battle. But I have learned of so many people in Burbank, so many people who have been touched by cancer."

Teams at the event were comprised of cancer survivors and their friends, family and loved ones, as well as people who had lost someone to the disease and others just looking to help raise funds.

For the first time, the freshman football team from John Burroughs High School got a team of relay walkers and fundraisers together for the event.

"We're trying to teach the kids that there is more to life than just football, or sports in general, and that they can help the community just by volunteering and helping out with stuff," Coach Art Yanez said.

The Burroughs relay team raised about $4,000 for the day, Yanez said.

Bands played throughout the day, giving walkers who sweated around the dusty track a boost. Early in the day, teams took photos to commemorate the moment.

A crazy-hat contest, pie-eating contest and men's hot legs contest all served to lighten the mood throughout the afternoon and into the evening toward what Lori Larson, one of the event co-chairs for the relay, called the most moving ceremony of the event, the luminarias.

"We have got an awesome community that has come together this year," said Larson. "We have got a lot of representation."

The relay had raised more than $100,000 by the middle of the day, Larson said.

For more information on the American Cancer Society, visit www.cancer.org.