For a number of months, Maddi DeGennaro, RN, Income Development Specialist with the American Cancer Society Southeast Region, would make a recommendation to the ACS Pottstown Unit Advisory Board to consider holding a new event called the Relay for Life. In addition to vocally asking for assistance with such a project, she had the Board watch ACS promotional videos and even brought representatives to meetings to try to convince the unit of the event’s money raising potential.

As a favor to Maddi, Sharon Basile, RN, along with Ginny Hoppes, cancer survivor and patient, and Ginny’s husband, Dick, visited Kutztown, PA’s 1997 Relay for Life. Sharon described the event during a subsequent meeting of the ACS Pottstown Advisory Board and ended with the simple statement, “I think we could have a wonderful Relay here in Pottstown.” Her enthusiasm and vision of a local event, along with the offered assistance of Ginny and Dick, were the catalyst for the record breaking event held at the Hill School on May 30-31, 1998. Hundreds of people spent two very hot humid days walking, talking, dancing and singing. Some even endured a “near-tornado” the night before the Relay as they were setting up their tents. (Sharon remembers standing under the massive main tent in the wind and describes it as being somewhat akin to “being in the heaving lungs of some giant beast breathing in and out.”) The first time event for the area blew away all records for a new Relay as well as the record for money raised in the area on one day, over $132,000. In fact, Pottstown Relay helped Montgomery County place sixth nationally in its population group for Relay for Life events.

Sharon’s role in helping organize logistics included the Survivors’ and Caregivers’ walks, Survivors‘ tent and Team Recruitment. She and her husband Don contributed 6 golf carts for use in material and personnel transport, a dance floor for line dancing instructors, 25 outdoor extension cords so electric could be provided to the event staging area and other activities. In addition, Sharon developed a database of over 1600 names representing luminarias donated