Monday Merced Matters: Cindy Ramirez & the Relay for Life

Every person involved in Relay for Life seemingly has a deeply personal, frequently heartbreaking, sometimes inspiring motive for participating in the battle against cancer.

Merced’s Cindy Ramirez has many stories.

She lost her friend, Ernie Punches, to cancer in 2011. Two years later, the disease took her aunt, Carol Guerrero. Now her close friend and co-organizer of the annual relay in Merced, Karen Bricky, is beginning her third battle.

“Almost everybody has been touched by it, either themselves or someone they care for,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez, 52, retired last year after working for 32 years in Merced County’s Child Support Services office and used her extra time to benefit the annual Merced relay.

She said the struggles of her friends and family only inspire her to work harder, to do more, to bring people together to push back against the malignant disease.

“I think it makes it easier to get involved. It gives me a reason, a motivation to help,” Ramirez said Saturday as survivors of the disease walked around the track of Merced Community College. “Maybe people who haven’t been personally touched, maybe they don’t feel a connection to it.”

Ramirez is involved in teams, including the “Team Punches Out Cancer,” named for her late friend. She is also a key organizer this year, serving as the event leader.

She helps raise money for the American Cancer Society, helps direct the volunteers setting up the more than 60 booths and makes sure the more than 700 participants have a place to camp out during the event.

Ramirez is quick to note she is just one of dozens of people who pitch in year-round to plan, organize and marshal resources for the event. “It takes a whole team,” she said. “I’m just one of the people who help. My whole family, for example, is involved in the relay committee.”

Each volunteer, Ramirez said, does what he or she can to help, and many, including Ramirez, go out of their way to make sure everyone who wants to participate can get involved.

“I registered a team right before midnight last night,” Ramirez said, laughing. “Then we got here at 6 this morning to help set up.”

Ramirez comes from a family and a group of former co-workers who have always rallied to help their loved ones through tough times. Helping is a tradition for Ramirez and others in Merced County.

When Bricky learned last year her ovarian cancer had returned for the second time, county employees banded together and donated their vacation hours to help Bricky through the ordeal.

The relay committee is always looking for new members.

“It’s not hard; one meeting a month for an hour,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez, with all her responsibilities to the relay, said she makes sure to take some time for herself during the event to walk the track and reflect.

“We all do it for our friends, our co-workers, our families,” she said. “I look it as my reasons for being here.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2015 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Monday Merced Matters: Cindy Ramirez & the Relay for Life."