Downriver Residents 'Light The Night' in Wyandotte

Despite the chilly weather and sporadic rain, approximately 600 people from the Downriver area gathered on Friday at Biddle Avenue and Elm Street to support The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) and their annual Light the Night Walk.

The Light the Night Walk brings volunteers together in communities across the United States and Canada to raise money for LLS’s research and to form support systems for those battling blood cancers. The event is held five times annually in Michigan, with one walk stationed in Wyandotte.

“It’s a celebration to overcome a debilitating disease like blood cancer and it’s also a time where we remember those who have lost their battle with blood cancer,” said Peggy Shriver, executive director of the LLS Michigan Chapter.

LLS’s Michigan Chapter has approximately 5,100 registered patients in their program and it funds more than $5 million in research in the state, Shriver said.

“We are the single largest voluntary health organization in the world dedicated solely to finding a cure for blood cancer,” Shriver said. “The premise is that your blood carries things from one organ to another and if we can find a cure for blood cancer, it could serve as a gateway to cure other forms of cancer.”

Jan Miller, patient services manager of LLS’s Michigan Chapter, said what the group is “intent on accomplishing is improving the quality of life for patients and their families.”

Walking to honor loved ones

Nichole Wallace of Wyandotte attended the event with her family for the first time to support her 7-year-old cousin who is at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital with leukemia.

“It’s great because everyone comes together and that’s what they need is a good support system. If everyone keeps sticking together then more people will come out by word of mouth,” Wallace said. “It helps to raise money to help for this cure and it’s a great cause.”

After sunset, walkers carried lit balloons of different colors as they walked a planned route. Participants who carried red balloons were walking in support of somebody with blood cancer, while those who carried white balloons are survivors and walkers who carried gold balloons were walking in memory of somebody who lost their battle with blood cancer.

During the celebration, those walking in memory were asked to tie a gold star to a lattice on the stage during a commemorative ceremony. Afterward, those holding gold balloons were asked to raise them in the air.

“It’s very symbolic and it’s an incredibly touching and moving moment when they ask people with gold balloons to raise them high and the others to lower them. Then you see these gold balloons and you know that each one of those represents somebody who lost their lives. It’s why we’re here. So that there will be fewer and fewer gold balloons,” Shriver said.

Raising money, raising awareness

There were also other ways to raise awareness and funds at the event. Various booths giving out T-shirts and raffling donated goody bags lined the curbs of Elm Street. Other tents included a patient support tent, a remembrance tent and a bone marrow drive station.

Participants John and Marika Kontos of Southgate attended the event in support of their 31-year-old daughter, Kara, who has a blood cancer, and also in memory of John Kontos’s mother who passed away from a blood cancer.

“We’ve always been very supportive of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society,” John Kontos said. “It promotes the cause. Lymphomas and leukemias are hitting so many people today and the pharmaceutical companies, the universities and research centers, they need help to finance the medical research to come up with the latest cures.”

Event attendants said the walk helps to raise awareness about a cancer that isn’t as widely recognized as others.

Mary Simoneau, who was carrying red and white balloons, said she came from Livonia to attend the event in support of her husband, Roger, who was diagnosed with blood cancer in August.

“I’m a breast cancer survivor so every October when I see pink everywhere I get so excited, but since I’ve seen what he’s going through, I’m really frustrated that there isn’t more awareness of this. My goal is to make people more aware of this,” she said. “People have to know more about it. They have to.”