Community Corner

Relay for Life, PurpleLinks Provide Charity for Cancer Community

The 24-hour Relay for Life kicks off Saturday at West Bloomfield High School, while the PurpleLinks golf outing begins Monday at Tam O'Shanter Country Club.

Stacie Goldman lost her mother to breast cancer. Dan Vallone lost his father to pancreatic cancer. Dana Catania lost her mother to leukemia.

Whatever the reason or the event, everyone involved in the on Saturday and the on Monday will have one thing in common—working through charity to fight cancer.

Catania, who is chairing this year’s Relay for Life after five years of involvement with the ACS, has set a goal for the event of raising $250,000. She said that the 44 groups signed up, representing area faiths, schools, workplaces and simply friends and families, are well on their way, thanks in large part to social media networking sites.

Find out what's happening in West Bloomfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“(The Relay for Life in) West Bloomfield is actually the largest online fundraising event in the region for the ACS,” said Catania, who expects to see 2,000 people at when the relay begins at 10 a.m. Saturday. “We say that every $10 makes a difference in the fight, but plenty of people are going above and beyond, and that sense of community makes it remarkable.”

The event will run 24 hours and offer various fundraisers on-site, including face-painting, massages, bake sales and a food tent. “We want to remind everyone that cancer doesn’t sleep, and neither do we,” Catania said.

Find out what's happening in West Bloomfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Stacie Goldman chaired the Relay for Life last year, when more than $220,000 was raised, as well as in 2009. She said that cancer education was the goal of the event.

“Outside of events like this, not everyone comes together. You realize when you do that if we continue this fight, then not all of us will have cancer. You want to educate yourself so that you can educate your family and get them involved. We want everyone to be aware of the steps you can take as precautions.”

Golf outing provides support for pancreatic cancer community

As someone who was told that his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, Dan Vallone knows how vital education can be. Vallone said that he felt “lonely” without an established group to help provide education and support, which inspired him to help create the PurpleLinks Detroit’s golf outing.

The event at the , which will run from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday, is in its fifth year. It was the brainchild of Vallone, an executive chef at the club, and Gael Sandoval, who founded the Detroit affiliate of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PANCAN) in 2007.

“My father passed away within eight weeks of his diagnosis … The doctors said, ‘Just take him home, because there’s nothing we can do.’ We just couldn’t believe it, and there was nobody to talk to about it. At the time in Michigan, there was no pancreatic cancer awareness network,” Vallone said.

According to PANCAN’s 2010 National Plan to Advance Cancer Research, pancreatic cancer is the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths, and the National Cancer Institute devotes $74.2 million—less than 2 percent of its budget—to research and development.

The golf outing raised $83,000 last year. Contributing to the event's success are the 35 club employees who help prepare the continental breakfast, four-plate dinner, free live music and silent auction, which is open to the public at $75 per seat, said Vallone.

“This time of year, the dedicated staff here are working six to seven days a week, so this represents their only day off, and they still work for free,” Vallone said. “The vendors donate their food, and the musicians work for free. A golf outing is a dime a dozen, but we have people working hard to make sure it’s the best golf outing people go to.”

Sandoval, who also coordinates an annual charity walk at the Detroit Zoo in the fall (slated for Oct. 9 this year), said that Vallone’s family history with the illness as well as his role at the club help make it an “amazing” fundraiser.

“Putting together an all-volunteer event is challenging, but he approached me five years ago and he’s really stepped up,” Sandoval said. “I’ve been doing this most of my entire career, and you don’t see that compassion and support he gets.”


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from West Bloomfield