Saturday's Bark for Life at Sunnybrook was delightful. Absolutely delighful.
I saw friends, former co-workers, and the women I have come to know as the force behind Pottstown's million-dollar miracle. Ruell Johnson, executive vice president of the American Cancer Society, visited from Atlanta, and I boasted about Sunnybrook's dance floor, springtime in Pennsylvania, and the friendly, positive atmosphere surrounding the Bark for Life.
Our town, with 500 dogs leading the way, was on its best behavior Saturday.
For more on this celebration of four-legged life, read Monday's editorial and see more photos.
And don't forget to vote in The Mercury's Top Dog contest. Cast your votes with a ballot available at The Mercury offices and drop off your cash or check payable to the American Cancer Society. The dog getting the most dollar votes wins a front-page feature in The Mercury and a bag of gifts. All proceeds benefit Relay for Life.

This headline is "borrowed" from the title page of the annual report of the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, but it is the most accurate description for the new initiative on our Web page, "Voices of Relay: Leaving their Mark."

This Web page, designed by online editor Eileen Faust, is a special feature highlighting the reasons Pottstown area people participate in the local Relay. On the site you will hear the voices and view video of the known and unknown heroes of this little town's million-dollar miracle, the Pottstown Relay for Life.

Mary Kochel, who is a 90-year-old cancer survivor and charter member of the local American Cancer Society chapter, describes on video how she pooh-poohed the idea 12 years ago to start a local Relay. JoAnn McKiernan tells about the start of the canine Relay last year, as her dog Sassy sits on her lap making faces at the camera and stealing the show.

There are poignant stories that will make you cry, and others that will make you smile.

Courtney Glass is a cancer survivor who is only 25 years old and tells of her hard-fought battle to live. Kathy Brennan, this year's Relay chairman, recounts how she made a vow to give back whatever she could if she survived her bout with cancer. Our own Sunday editor Chuck Pitchford tells how he has worked on the Sunday paper every spring that chronicles the success of the local Relay, but he never knew how much it would affect his life until his wife Donna died a year ago, just a week after being diagnosed with cancer. Chuck's family has started a Relay team this year, Dreams for Donna, to honor the life of Donna Pitchford.

Voices of Relay is an example of how the Web is expanding our ability as a newspaper to tell stories, and there is no more poignant or moving example.

We will continue to update the site with more video and more voices as we approach the May 31-June 1 Relay for Life at Pottsgrove High School.

The goal is $1.1 million. The dream is a world free of cancer. The means is right there in the local voices of people leaving their mark.

The Pottstown Relay for Life has become well-established in recent years as a fund-raising machine for the American Cancer Society.
The local effort raised more $1 million in 2007 and was fourth in the world in the amount of money raised.
Of the thousands who participate in Relay each year, many are connected to the fight against cancer through the loss or the survival of loved ones.
But, it is the survivors themselves whose presence epitomizes the “HOPE” spelled out in luminaria in the Pottsgrove High School stadium.
Hazel LeVan and Mae Mogul are two of those survivors profiled recently in The Mercury. Mogel, whose husband Pete is also a cancer survivor, is the grand marshal for this year’s Relay, leading the survivor lap at the track on May 31.
“I’ll be a 24-year-survivor April the second,” said Mae Mogul of Limerick. A breast cancer survivor, she was only 48 at the time of diagnosis. Even though her body is cancer-free, she says that her life revolves around the disease -- helping others to cope and volunteering for Relay to work toward a cure. .
She is a volunteer at Pottstown Memorial Regional Cancer Center and has helped raise nearly $100,000 through her church’s Relay team.
Hazel LeVan has a similar story. Diagnosed with cancer in 1984 at the age of 51, this Boyertown woman didn’t talk about it even while undergoing surgery and treatment.
“Cancer just was not talked about,” she said. To help correct that situation for future generations, LeVan got involved with starting a breast cancer support group through the Pottstown cancer center.
For LeVan, Relay is an opportunity to take action and produce something tangible in the fight against cancer, something she desperately wanted to influence given that she didn’t want her children and grandchildren to face a diagnosis like she did.
“I had four daughters,” Hazel said. “That’s four daughters I don’t want to go through this.”
LeVan also volunteers with Reach to Recovery, a program that pairs volunteers with people who are battling cancer, and helps give them practical information, such as helping a woman who has undergone a mastectomy the best places to get a bathing suit, and other things that will enable them to move on with their lives.
The stories of these survivors demonstrate the commitment and compassion of the corps of survivors that inspire everyone involved with the Pottstown Relay.
The Relay in Pottstown is about a community that takes up the fight, and these survivors are the ultimate fighters -- for themselves, those around them and for the future.
They keep the candles of HOPE burning bright.