“They told me I wouldn’t make it,” 63-year-old Anne Havel said as she began to describe her experience with a string of cancers.
First it was breast cancer in 1996, then stage four lung cancer ten years later.
“In 2007, it was the summer of colon cancer,” she said, adding that now they have it contained.
Havel sat with friends on Saturday — one a fellow cancer survivor — watching Relay for Life teams make their rounds at the weekend-long event at Mohawk Valley Community College. The Utica relay is just one of several taking place this weekend, others included events in Herkimer County and Sauquoit.
The 24-hour walk in Utica began at noon Saturday and will end at noon today. Hundreds of people turned out for the event, hoping to raise funds for research and an eventual cure, and camping out for the weekend in tents featuring themes from various television series.
On the end of the camp closest to the parking lot, members of Team Tony were decked out in costumes from Batman.
“He fights crime and we fight cancer,” Michele Robertson said, sitting at the mouth of the bat cave and Gotham city.
Team Tony’s tent also offered a fish bowl game as well as a raffle with the possibility to win a kayak.
“It’s just an awesome event to help raise money for research,” Robertson’s daughter Kala Robertson said.
As of 6 p.m. Saturday, the event’s website listed 466 participants, 42 teams and a total of $83,601 already raised.
Deeper into the mass of tents, Marcy resident Jeanine Zammiello watched over the coffee and tea she was offering to participants.
Zammiello said her father passed away from prostate cancer in 2001, and it was her niece who suggested they start a team — Team Grandpa. They’ve been doing this for nine years.
“It’s a like a big family,” she said. “All the teams get to know one another, and you look forward to seeing one another each year.”
Havel said she comes to the event to get the message out that “you can beat cancer” and to show support, which she’s had a lot of herself.
Working as a teacher’s assistant at Kernan Elementary School, Havel said the faculty and staff and especially the kids have kept her going.
“To me cancer is a bully, and we don’t allow bullying anywhere,” she said. “You just have to fight it.”