With all of the changes coming to the 2019 Covington County Relay for Life event, organizers are hard at work to make sure everything is in order.

In October of 2018, organizers announced that the event would be held at Springdale instead of their usual event location at the Kiwanis Center.

Along with the venue change, they also lowered the fundraising goal to $80,000.

“We decided to decrease the goal to $80,000 this year,” Randi Bozeman said. “Last year we were just short of that so hopefully we can pull it off this year.”

Relay has also set a goal of 20 teams and as of right now, they still need more to register.

“Right now, we have around 11 to 13 teams registered,” Bozeman said. “So we definitely need more teams as well as sponsors.”

Bozeman said that being a sponsor is a great way to connect with the community.

“We have several businesses that don’t want to be a team, but they want to be sponsors,” Bozeman said. “It is always a great opportunity if people want to be sponsors. We have several different levels they can choose from.”

This year’s theme is “Taking it to the Street.”

“Usually at the Kiwanis building we have teams set up tents,” Bozeman said. “This year we want people to create a carnival type booth with games or face painting.”

One big difference in this year’s Relay for Life is that there won’t be a track to walk around like at the Kiwanis Center during the relay part of the event.

“We are thinking about having it where people will walk from Springdale to the square and back,” Bozeman said. “But we would have to talk to the police and figure some things out. Right now, we will have all of our survivors walking around the Veteran’s Memorial behind Springdale. I know that a lot of people talk about walking a track as a sort of tradition so if you aren’t a survivor you can walk the Veteran’s Memorial trail as well.”

One thing is for certain and that is the tradition will still be in the event, she said.

“We definitely want to keep that tradition going,” Bozeman said. “We will still incorporate some of the old things that we used to do. We want it to be fun, but different so the survivors can enjoy it the most.” 

Bozeman said that they are adding some things to bring in the community.

“We will have a D.J., a talent show and several other things,” Bozeman said. “We want to try and bring the community in to the event by having these things. We want people to bring their kids and have fun. Come see what it is all about and see why we do this.”

The first monthly planning meeting will be Tues., Jan. 15 at 6 p.m., at the Covington 4-H Building. Any team captains and members are encouraged to come and get information about the night of Relay for life.

The 2019 Covington County Relay for Life event is scheduled for April 26, starting with an opening ceremony at 6 p.m.