Trucker’s Parade Against Cancer team receives national award

By Crystal Vandegrift, Staff Writer

One of Charlotte County’s Relay for Life Teams received a national award last week.

The Trucker’s Parade Against Cancer Team was recognized for being in the top ten among teams for their fundraiser efforts for 2015.

According to Sheila Dodd Jones, co-captain and founder of the Truckers Parade against Cancer, the team raised over $104,000 last year during their big fundraiser.

Each year since the beginning 15 years ago their fundraising efforts have grown.

Last year 185 truckers joined in the annual truckers parade that travels through Charlotte County.

How it all started

Sheila Dodd Jones was invited to join the Cookie Crumbles Relay For Life team, led by Cookie Milton following the loss of her mother (Carroll Hamlett Dodd) to breast cancer in 1987. After participating in the relay for several years and participating in team fundraising events, she began feeling like the standard fundraisers, such as yard sales and bake sales, just were not bringing in the dollars needed to find a cure for cancer.

Jones, along with her husband Darrin, began to brainstorm about other options and alternatives to the average fundraisers. That is when the Truckers Parade was born.

According to Jones, one thing that was critical to her was that all the funds raised by the parade went to research. “We told the cancer society that we wanted 100 percent of the funds to go towards research and not administration costs, and they agreed,” she explained.

The Truckers Parade Against Cancer that started in Charlotte County also inspired other parades in the Commonwealth such as those held each year in Galax and Nelson Counties.

“We continue to do this each year because we have to find a cure,” said Jones.