St. James Plantation earns American Cancer Society Relay For Life Hero of Research Award

WILMINGTON, NC – Residents at the St. James Plantation in Southport were one of the top three fundraising teams out of more than 19,000 nationwide and have earned the American Cancer Society’s Hero of Research Award in recognition of their support of Relay For Life in 2021.

The team from the sprawling, active retirement community raised more than $210,000 – easily eclipsing the necessary $165,000 to qualify for the award – for the Relay For Life of the Cape Fear Area.

On Wednesday, June 15, the St. James Plantation team will host a dinner celebration from 5-8 p.m. at the St. James Community Center.

The Hero of Research Award allows the St. James Plantation team to name an existing post-doctoral fellowship research grant in honor of a loved one or their team. They chose to name a research project by Jess Hebert, PhD, at Stanford University, the St. James Community Research Project. The three-year grant studies the genetic determinants of immune evasion by metastatic lung cancer.

“The American Cancer Society was founded on a small group of people committed to saving lives,” Rachel Urban, executive director for the American Cancer Society in central and eastern North Carolina, said. “One hundred and eight years later, St. James is proof that, despite many obstacles, cancer caregivers and families are the most powerful force. Nothing is off limits for this group. We are so grateful for this team, this community and this group of individuals.”

“The St. James team had several team members lose their battle with cancer during 2020 and 2021,” Liz Knapp said, who has served as chair of the team for the last two years. “Their passing heightened our desire to have meaningful impact. When we learned of the Hero of Research grant award, we knew immediately it was something we wanted to strive for. Cancer has affected too many in our community.”

The St. James Plantation team of 46 community residents is not new to the fight against cancer. Over the last 25 years, the St. James Plantation community has raised more than $2 million for the American Cancer Society. With the COVID-19 pandemic still dramatically impacting in-person events last year, the St. James Plantation team got creative – partnering with local businesses to host virtual wine tastings and dinners, two 5K events, a golf tournament and a concert among their many fundraising activities.

“We live in a very, very giving community,” Knapp said. “COVID, I think, pushed us to think out of the box and realize we couldn’t just do the same four or five things, and hope for the same results when people were not, at that time, holding gatherings. We had to think virtually, what else could we do to keep the fundraising alive without expecting 200 people to show up at an in-person event? Considering the fact that a lot of the local businesses were suffering, part of the conversation was ‘How do we support them while they’re supporting us at the same time? What’s a win-win?’ We tried to do things that would benefit the businesses while still making some money for us.”

The American Cancer Society is the largest private nonprofit, non-governmental funder of cancer research in the U.S., and has played a role in many of the major cancer research breakthroughs in the last century. ACS has invested more than $5 billion in cancer research since 1946, all to find more – and better – treatments, uncover factors that may cause cancer, and improve cancer patients’ quality of life.

Relay For Life is a movement, a community of like-minded survivors, caregivers, volunteers and participants who believe that the future can be free from cancer.