Three thousand dollars: that’s what we raised last week between the Pasta Supper and the Yard/Craft Sale. We are all of us pleased to have done that well. Three other Greater Fall River Relay groups brought their goods to market at the yard sale. They may have raised another $1,000 among them Sunday from that event. That’s $4,000 closer to our $350,000 planning committee goal from

just four teams last week.

Of course, that money was not really made last week–that just happens to be when the money exchanged hands. The Pasta Supper took weeks of planning, preparation and marketing. The poster and ticket designs alone were the project of hours, not minutes. Then the posters and tickets had to be printed. We spent a full day scouring Westport for locations that would put the posters in their windows.

The yard sale also took weeks of planning and preparation–and one of the things we figured out along the way was we needed to start that earlier and start recruiting participants earlier than we did.

But to the public, it all looks effortless if you have done the job right. They see the finished products–but not the underpinnings that got them there.

The Greater Fall River Relay for Life will likely raise $350,000-$400,000 this year–and maybe more. The Greater New Bedford Relay will likely top $400,000. Between the two there will be over 2,000 active participants on close to 200 teams. The general public will see the two-day events both groups will put on the weekend of June 22-23. The local papers will applaud the money raised and the American Cancer Society will be lavish in its praise of both organizations.

But only the active participants will know the thousands of hours that went into raising all that money.

And those efforts are repeated at thousands of other Relays around the country.

In September, thousands will walk the route of the Boston Marathon to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over $7 million will come in that day to fund the search for answers to the riddle of cancer. But few will see the effort that leads up to that day: the work of the walkers to raise the money, the work of the volunteers in support of those efforts, the hours spent organizing the event…

There are dozens of similar–sometimes longer–walks–some for cancer in general, others for specific cancers.

And we have made progress on some cancers. Childhood leukemia is no longer an automatic death sentence for most patients. We detect breast cancer early enough that a radical mastectomy is no longer the only option–and even for advanced cases, there is real hope for something other than an early grave.

But for some other cancers, it is still 1947. Neuroendocrine cancer is one of those.

Relay started in 1985. A young colorectal surgeon decided to run around a track, non-stop, for 24 hours. He would not sleep–he would not stop– because cancer never sleeps–because cancer never stops.

That was 37 years ago. Gordy Klatt, that young doctor, was diagnosed with cancer last month.

We still have miles to go.