Photo by Jake McNeill: Participants in the Avera Cancer Institute's Race Against Cancer embark on a one-kilometer walk Saturday morning beginning at Avera's Birch Street campus in Marshall.

MARSHALL — The Avera Cancer Institute hosted its annual Race Against Cancer on Saturday morning in Marshall to help support local cancer patients and their families.

The day’s events began with a Circle of Hope Ceremony. Led by director Jessica Moriarty, the ceremony was meant to honor and reflect on those affected by cancer.

“For me, it’s my favorite part because it brings together both the survivors and those people on the journey and those caregivers,” Moriarty said. “That’s really such an important part of a patient’s cancer journey, the people that support them and lift them up and help them get through their journey.

“It’s really a testament to honor them and to celebrate them and I think it’s a great start to what the purpose of the race is too, to celebrate and to honor and to be a part of that.”

Following the ceremony, those in attendance embarked from Avera’s Bruce Street campus for a one-kilometer walk or a 5K run.

People came from all over for the event. One of the participants, Heather Kobbermann, purchased an airplane to support her father, Jeff Bailey, in his radiation treatment. While she grew up in Marshall, graduating from Marshall High School in 2007, she currently lives in Virginia, making the commute for the race over 1,000 miles further.

“[We made the decision] on Wednesday, closed on the airplane on Thursday, left on Friday,” Kobbermann said. “We finished everything up Wednesday night, at 7 a.m. he was getting up to go pick it up at the airport in Kentucky, flew it home and then we left our house at noon on Friday.”

Kobbermann said the reason she felt it was so important to get to Marshall because she wanted to support her dad the same way he tries to support his communities.

Bailey was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2016 but he now has just two more weeks of radiation remaining.

“I feel good because I want to see my grandkids grow up and my kids have more children,” Bailey said. “I want to live life a little more. But I always look at it like there’s a lot of people that have it worse than me, so I’m very happy with whatever I am going through.”

Following the walk and run, snacks and beverages were provided for the day’s participants.

Beyond the local race, Avera also hosted a chip-timed race in Sioux Falls, S.D. as well as other smaller events in Aberdeen, Mitchell, Pierre and Yankton, S.D. 100% of the day’s donations and registration fees were put towards patient services.

“I think the biggest thing is that everybody’s touched by cancer and it’s not anybody’s fault. It just happens,” Moriarty said. “I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t know someone or friends or family with someone with cancer. It hits so many people and there’s so much need to continue to research and to continue to find answers and cures and to really work to make their journeys better.”