The 24th annual Rice County Relay for Life is just hours away on the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault. I can tell I'm getting older because I'm sore now after assisting with set up and I'm pretty sure I don't do as much as I used to.

After the 8:05 Report this morning on KDHL, I hopped into my errand truck and went to the fairgrounds.

It's always awesome to see kids of all ages loading the luminary bags with sand and a candle and placing them around the fairgrounds. People donate their ATV's that pull flatbed trailers and some people still bring their toy wagons to transport bags around the grounds.

I assisted with setting up tables and chairs and decorated the KDHL/Power 96 Stage with the help of some awesome people from the Faribault Diversity Coalition.

The usual chore of setting up barricades at various locations to keep people's vehicles off the main fairgrounds is also one I've adopted over the years along with another volunteer, and we placed the garbage disposal bins around the grounds.

Now we need you!

I did have the official money-people tally totals from each year, and going into the Rice County Relay tonight we are over the $2 million mark: $2,006,627.90.  I offered a dime to make it an even $628 and they said no. Why do official bookkeepers do that anyway?

So it's celebration time, Rice County. Come on down and party because you've raised more than $2 million over the past 23 years, and the list of survivors continues to grow.

Eventually I pray there will be no need for the Relay to fight cancer because there will be a cure.

There's a bloodmobile from 4-9PM on the Rice County Fairgrounds.

Fairgrounds open at 5PM and teams will be walking all night. The survivor's reception in the Beer Garden is 5-6PM. The opening ceremony is at 6PM.

The survivor's lap will begin at 6:30PM where survivors are given paper rings for each year of survival and march to the Keith Shaffer Memorial Survivor Tree where they place them on the tree.

If you don't have a luminary yet in memory or honor of someone, they will be sold from 5-8PM.

The luminary lighting service begins at 8:30PM, and that's when we will hear the survivor stories of Honorary Chairs Kerry Vigesaa and Nicole Zrust.

The Allina Health cancer education booth is open from 5-8:30PM.

There will be food available on the grounds, so stop down for dinner tonight and take a night off from cooking. Bashers will be there with their food truck with a variety of items and the famous Nerstrand Meats hot dogs are back by popular demand.

Many of the teams have food tables and kids games to raise more money for the battle against cancer.

The Rice County Relay for Life closing ceremony is 7AM tomorrow.

It is open to the public, although this is when we find out the top individual money raiser and team fundraiser, so the 14 teams participating will be most interested.

There will also be some entertainment on the stage, so I hope to see you at the event tonight. The weather is gorgeous, just the way I ordered it.

The Young Lady in Pink Helped Me Decorate the Stage for the Rice County Relay.
The Young Lady in Pink Helped Me Decorate the Stage for the Rice County Relay.
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