NorthShore Health Centers Gives Back to the Portage Community Through Relay for Life

relayforlifeNorthShore Health Centers is all about helping the communities they are part of. This year you will be able to find NorthShore at Relay for Life with their own team.

“We have two awesome employees at NorthShore, Misty Soria-Gunning and Ericka Chadwick, who have had a team called the Rack Pack,” Denise Carpenter, Lead Community Outreach Coordinator at NorthShore Health Center said. “NorthShore was there last year but we didn’t have a team. This year we combined our NorthShore team with the Rack Pack.”

Thus, the NorthShore Rack Pack was born, and they will be participating in Relay for Life of Portage this year.

Relay for Life is an event that benefits the American Cancer Society (ACS), a nonprofit that has been fighting for a cure for cancer for 65 years. People who have been touched by cancer in some way get involved in this and they make sure that those who have suffered loss from this terrible disease don’t face the trouble alone. All of the funds that are raised in the community that surrounds the local Relay for Life event, stay in that community.

“NorthShore is extremely involved in the community,” Carpenter said. “We feel that this is a fantastic way to keep much needed funds in the local community. We can’t be who we are without the community, and we want to give back to the Portage community because they have given so much to us.”

Funds raised help multiple programs offered by the ACS including: cancer research, Hope Lodge®, Road To Recovery®, Look Good…Feel Better®, Reach To Recovery®, and other initiatives.

At each Relay for Life event there is an opening ceremony, followed by a survivor lap, then their caregivers join in for another lap. After this all of the survivors head to a nice dinner that is provided to them, free of charge.

“It’s so powerful to see them all walking together,” Carpenter said. “You never fully understand until you actually attend one of these events.”

“Portage is where we started. It will be 20 years next year that NorthShore has been in existence and we are able to do as much as we can because we have a great community behind us," Carpenter said.

If you would like to take part in NorthShore’s Relay for Life team, or you are a cancer survivor and want to be involved, click here!