Wagga Relay for Life set up a campsite within the Marketplace shopping centre on Saturday to showcase its solution to holding one of the city's biggest fundraisers during a pandemic.
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Relay for Life committee chairman Alan Pottie said health restrictions and the risk of a lockdown would likely still apply in November, so they decided to hold a 'Camp Your Way' event so people could safely participate at home or at their favourite camping spot.
"Normally, Wagga Relay for Life is an event with a thousand people gathering for 24 hours, so we thought about where we could do it," he said.
"You can camp from home, you can camp from the river, you can camp from anywhere because you can still do three things: you can still celebrate survivorship, you can still remember lost loved ones and you can still fight back by fundraising.
"Teams can gather at home or wherever they are in the district and they can still celebrate Relay for Life."
Wagga breast cancer survivor and Relay for Life committee member Connie Gordon said she hoped to see people keep supporting the event because she wanted to find a cure for all the people who have been affected by cancer.
"I have had family members who have lost their lives to cancer, I have also had a sister who was diagnosed with cancer as well," she said.
"The main reason I do it is to raise funds so that no-one has to go through that. I would love for a cure since this is such a terrible disease. I have just recently lost a good friend of the family to cancer.
"I do it mainly to raise funds because I would like to see a cure for the disease. It's really important to me."
Mrs Gordon has been a cancer survivor for 16 years and said it was terrifying to get the diagnosis.
"I had four young children at the time, my eldest was 12 and the youngest was five and hadn't started school yet," she said.
"I had surgery and chemotherapy and all that. I know people who didn't tell their children [about their diagnosis] but we were upfront with my kids with the get go.
"Kids know, they really do. They can feel that there is something wrong so if you don't tell them they make the problem bigger than it is."
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Mrs Gordon urged people to keep participating and donating to Relay for Life, which also helped support Lilier Lodge and the Riverina Cancer Centre and the transport to treatment program in the Riverina.
The committee set up a campsite in the Wagga Marketplace with tents and a mock fireplace as an "awareness day" and to urge passing shopper to take part in the virtual event.
"People have been wondering 'is Relay for Life on?' It's definitely on, it's just going to be different," he said.
Wagga Relay for Life's raised about $125,000 last year but Mr Pottie said if this year raised a similar amount it would be a "bonus".
"It's more about keeping up the awareness, because cancer doesn't stop. COVID has come along but cancer is with us 24 hours a day, which is what Relay for Life is all about.
"It was an event set up 40 years ago which was a relay that said 'cancer doesn't stop', so COVID shouldn't stop it either, we we have tried to reimagine how we could still have an event that raises awareness."
The Wagga Relay For Life Camp Your Way event will be held on November 21 and participants can register online at: cancercouncil.org.au/waggawaggarelay.