6.20.2026 - Relay for Life of Greater Fall River - Opening Ceremony & Survivor Lap

Good afternoon, folks. I'd like to bring Evan Massud from Fred TV who has been very wonderful to our event for over the years coming to film it. We thank you, Evan. Um, Evan is going to sing the national anthem with his absolutely beautiful voice. Come on up, Evan.

Thank you.

Oh, say can you see by the dawn early light, what so proudly we held at the twilight Last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous spite.

Or the ramp parts we watched were so gallently streaming.

And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave?

Or the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you everybody. My name is Christopher Lichfield. I'm the event lead with the Relay for Life and I'm a 23-year cancer survivor and been with Relay ever since.

Hi. And I'm Chris Palmer. I'm the entertainment lead. Chris and I are proud to be here with all of you. Each of us has a unique reason for being here, but together we share a united mission to make a difference in the fight against cancer.

More than more than a fundraising walk, Relay for Life is a global movement.

It's how we celebrate survivors and thrivers, honor caregivers, remember those we've lost, and fight back through fundraising and awareness. Every dollar raised enables us to invest in advocacy, research, and support for every affect everyone affected by cancer.

Relay for Life is a beacon of hope. For 40 years, we've empowered communities to take action. But our journey isn't over.

Every 15 seconds, someone hears the words, "You have cancer." Together, we've raised $6.9 billion since Relay began. WOOHOO.

And we're continuing to save over 4.1 million lives through research and support. Last year alone, we supported more than 30,000 survivors. Imagine the impact that we've created in 40 years.

What began with Dr. Gordy Platt's 24-hour run has evolved into a global phenomenon. Our mission is clear to end cancer as we know it for everyone. Let's look at the world impact. Your support makes our hope lodge communities provide a home away from home for people with cancer and their caregivers and a supportive caring environment so they can focus getting better. In 2024, ACS provided over 545,000 nights of free

stay for cancer survivors and their families.

The newly developed ACS Cares app is a groundbreaking digital tool with personalized content, services, and live expert support. The Voices of Black Women study is addressing disparities in cancer research through listening, learning, and action. And our Road to Recovery program offers free rides to treatment for volunteers, removing barriers to care. In 2024, we provided over 71,000 rides for people that need

to get their treatment done.

These are just a few of the ways you are making a difference. Since 1913, the American Cancer Society has been united by a simple goal. To stop cancer from destroying lives, and it's working, but we still have work to do. This year alone, over 2 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. in Massachusetts.

That includes 43,250 diagnosis and 12,470 deaths.

Chris at one point was one of our youngest survivors and I remember that.

And now he will share his journey with cancer and ultimately why he participates in the Relay for Life.

So back in 2003 I was diagnosed with rabdo meer saroma which is a stage three very fast growing soft tissue cancer.

The prognosis wasn't amazing but uh that night had absolutely changed our lives forever for myself and my entire family.

Uh while I was young enough to the point where I don't remember a lot of it there are stuff that I still had to deal with.

But with the help of my family and the support, we ended up getting through it pretty well. With rapid war saroma being rare, there aren't many known treatments for this type of cancer back when I had in 2003. The survival rate was roughly 50 to 70% for children like myself that was diagnosed with cancer like I was at the age of four. But now, because of all the research and development that has

gone through the medical system because of fundraisers like this, now that survival rate is almost up to 90%. So, what an increase.

I had many very intensive surgeries that took hours upon hours and the doctor had, you know, drawn me up and done a whole bunch of things to make sure that it was done correctly. And when he came out of that surgery, he said that it turned out that it was a miracle the way that that tumor slipped out of my body.

That certainly there was some there was something else that was going on for that to actually happen. It was not just science.

Eventually, roughly a year later, after many, many hours of treatment, many different needles, and much much that went into it and a lot of care and relationships built over that time, I was cancer-free at 5 years old.

Throughout that time of me doing all those treatments and everything, I had actually started relay at the age of four and that started the journey where I'm at today. So now I've taken over as the event lead and I look to take it on to the next level. So as I see everybody here today, I just want to say a big thank you to everybody for being here. Uh this is a much bigger

turnout than I had actually expected.

You know, being up on this stage, it looks a little different than when you're walking around the track. So I appreciate you all.

Now, I hope uh that the rest of the time you guys are able to just think about not just my story, but everybody up in front here as they all have their own stories. Everybody in purple you see went through their own battle and their own mission and they all do it for a reason and there's a reason why you are all here too. So, I hope that for the

rest of the day, just know that every dollar you spend at these sites over here are being put to a good cause. So, feel free to spend your money.

You're right up to Oh, one minute.

Okay. This kid said he was microphone shy. I doubt it. Okay.

Thank you, Chris. You remind us why this movement matters. And now, let's celebrate.

That's written in all caps. So, I think I was supposed to do that. Okay. I would like to start by recognizing our event leadership. Um, this is Oh, wait. This is you.

No, that's you. That's still you.

Yeah. Oh, this is my boat.

No, that is me. Whoops.

Yep. That one was me. Whoops.

I just had to let's celebrate.

I would like to start by uh recognizing our event leadership team. uh everybody that you see in a blue shirt like this one uh we've met time and time again uh over the from January till up to this month. We've met every single month to plan this amazing event. I mean from the stage we're standing on to the luminar bags over on the side. I mean everything you see is because of our event

leadership team. So anybody you see in blue today, thank them because without them this would not be possible. Um, my role as event lead has been uh I kind of threw myself into it because I wanted to usher in the new era of relay. So, uh, I appreciate my whole event leadership team for that. Um, and next I want to recognize the team captains. U, all our team captains, I mean once again without

them like we don't have all these sites here. We don't have all you amazing people here cuz without them they're not they're not reminding everybody on this event. So, and without them, we're not really raising money. As of right now, last time I checked, we're at $68,000 raised.

So, well, that's definitely gone.

That's definitely gone off. That's not counting any of the cash I was taking today. Um, we're hoping to get to $100,000 by the end of the night. Now, $33,000 is not easy. So, um, once again, I don't, if anybody knows me personally, I don't normally advocate to just spend your money like crazy, but spend it.

Yeah, please please spend your money today. So, um yeah, big thank you to the team captains. Appreciate it.

Did Did you go off script? No.

Okay. Oh, so I would like to say thank you to all our day of volunteers. These four people, they arrived, they some of them been doing it, so they kind of know the the little what they're supposed to do, but other ones we just throw things at them. So, DeA volunteers, we really appreciate you. Um, the diamond students, again, you're those kids are not only are they good workers, but

they're very polite kids. So, if you the parents of diamond students are out there, you did a darn good job. Okay.

Um, what? Oh, I went off script. While our ELT are the minds that make this event a success, we couldn't possibly make it happen without those who commit their time to our event in various ways. And we thank you for anyone that we may have missed.

Now, time to thank those who make up the majority of our event, our general participants. So, those are for everybody who pretty much isn't named at this point. without you guys. I mean, this event is made by the numbers that we have. So, we had over 250 registered participants for this event. So, if you're here just in general support for those who you love or those up in front

over here, we really appreciate you and we want you to come back every single year. Tell your friends, talk about relay cuz we're trying to get this back to where we used to have a thousand people bumping on the track. So, we would really appreciate it. But yeah, without you guys, I mean, this once again, as you can tell, it takes everybody to make this event happen. So, we appreciate you guys as well.

And let's get it uh back into the new era, but but usher in a new era relay here guys.

Going down here.

Yep.

Yep. Okay. Speaking of this new era, I would love to thank the newest additions to our community, that being our food trucks. What did you think about the food trucks? You like them? the barbecue people, they they sold out.

They'll Well, actually, they still have some spare ribs. They asked if they could stay as long as they want, and I said, "If you want to stay till midnight and clean up, we'll be happy to have you."

Um, so this idea was to bring new life um to food and beverage. Um, it's something that we wanted to try and it actually I think it I think it worked out well. And we have Celeste running around free at some points. So that's scary.

Yes. Big Hello. Okay. Didn't think it worked.

Yeah. Big thank you to Celeste. Without her, that would not be possible at all.

So big thank you to Celeste.

And now we'd like to thank our sponsors for the event. First, we're going to start off with Primacare. Do you want to talk about Primeare? Is your company? I do not. But they've been sponsoring us for 20 years and I just don't work for them, but I think it's a great organization. They're great people. It's a wonderful group and they've been sponsoring us for over 20 years.

We want to thank All Day, All Night Towing over the years. They've supported us in a lot of different ways with this being one of them. Uh without this, we don't have a stage and uh yeah, we'd be much lower than we are right now. So, we appreciate that. Uh we also want to thank Wingland Golf Cars. Both of the golf cars you see make our job so much easier, especially for Matt Silva, who I

think only does this because he wants to drive the golf car.

We also want to thank Stop and Shop for uh the food that they gave us today. Uh they helped us a lot with that. Um the water and the water. So, thank you Stop and Shop. We really appreciate that.

Toyota Dartmouth made a last minute donation at the buzzer. So, we'd love to thank them for that. Um, big shout out to Toyota Dartmouth for that one. And I currently have my car sitting there right now cuz I got a flat tire over the weekend. So, thank you Toyota.

We also got Raw Seafoods who gave us the freezer truck. So, big thank you to Raw Seafoods.

We also have Coca-Cola. We'd really like to say thank you to Coca-Cola. They've supported us over the years as well. I am the biggest Coca-Cola fanatic. I see my mom cheering over in the crowd over there. So, yeah, we love Coca-Cola. So, thank you, Coca-Cola. We got Domino's, who's sponsoring our pizza party tonight. We're giving out free pizza at 8:45 tonight. So, for all you staying

till late night, get ready for some free pizza. We got free pizza for you.

And last but not least, Liberty Utilities. They actually have a team with us as well. Uh we had we have our annual golf fundraiser that we do with them this year. Raised over $11,000 for us. So, Yeah, big deal for them. So, um, yeah, big thank you to Liberty Utilities for that one as well.

There's more.

Oh, but there's more. Finally, on behalf of all survivors, we'd like to thank our caregivers. Our caregivers are those who directly support survivors during their journey with cancer and are responsible for lifting them up when they keep getting knocked down. I strongly encourage all of our survivors in front of me to have your caregiver accompany you during our lab.

So, right now, I'd like to call all the survivors up with the phone.

You want to go down and bring that to them?

The microphone.

Oh, yes.

Line up by your number.

Stevie.

Stevie. Steviey's number one.

Okay. So, Steviey's going to they're going to start do a poem.

You know what? Um, Christopher, maybe you can just go right down the line with the microphone.

What cancer cannot do?

Cancer is so limited.

It cannot love.

It cannot shatter hope.

It cannot dissolve faith. Cannot destroy peace. It cannot kill friendship.

It cannot surpass memories. It cannot conquer the spirit. It cannot s conquer silence.

It cannot invade the soul.

And that is so true. Thank you survivors. You can go back to your seats. Actually, you can hold them. You can want to hold them around the track. That's fine.

Okay.

Today we have our four river youth They will be they will be leading the survivors. So when you're ready, everyone stand. It's your time to shine.

Everyone else go to your sides and cheer them on.

We're not all steadier than steel cuz we're ready with a shield and sword.

back on the saddle cuz we've gathered all our strength for more and we won't bow. We won't break. No, we're not afraid to do whatever it takes. We'll never bow. We'll never break.

Cuz we are warriors. We'll fight for our lives like soldiers all through the night. And we won't give up. We will survive. We are warriors and we're stronger. That's why we're alive. We will conquer time after time.

We'll never falter. We will survive. We are warriors.

We are warriors like Vikings. We'll be fighting through the day and night. Day and night.

We'll be marching through the darkness till the morning light. Morning light.

Even when it's hard like the army, you will see us shine.

Shine.

No, we won't stop and we won't drop until the victory is ours.

No, we won't bow. We won't break. No, we're not afraid to do whatever it takes. We'll never bow. We'll never break.

Hey.