He has seen it's not simply a matter of raising money beforehand and raising some more at the event. As if on cue, as he stood talking next to the track, a group of cancer survivors began to file past. There was not a person watching who did not know at least one of the cancer survivors walking in victory on the track. Dernbach was manning the booth of his team, the Relay Hawgs, made up of the Harley Davidson motorcycle owners club. Members of the Gulfview Middle School team keep a high energy level going at 4 a.m. while most of the others camping in the infield of the track sleep.
Teams hawked nearly anything to raise an extra buck.
Meehan Donovan, a Lake Park Elementary School student, offered to dance an Irish jig for a dollar. He wore a headphone and walkie-talkie that was beckoning him when the P.A. system was not. You want to have fun and you want to help people. The relay, he said, is a way to do both. The hug over, Conti continued.