Saturday afternoon, I joined the Relay for Life teams at Chase Memorial Nursing home for a fundraiser aimed at buying residents’ gifts and donating money to cancer research.

The Holiday Bazaar at the Chase Community Center hosted a number of area craft vendors and sold lunches with half the money going to American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and the rest spent on gifts for the home’s residents.

Chase’s Assistant Supervisor of Nursing and bazaar volunteer Maryanne Campbell said that while there are many families who come to Chase during the holidays, some residents have few visitors or living relatives. It’s those individuals the event hoped to help, she explained, by purchasing gifts that would later be presented by the nursing home’s staff.

Campbell said she helped start the bazaar last year “so we could make more money for the Chase residents and the Relay.”

Chase has more than 50 employees participating in the Relay for Life, which is enough to support two teams – Caring Hearts and Healing Hands.

The bazaar and bake sale was from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., and I arrived at just after 11.

I was told the lunch hour was the busiest time of the day and an extra pair of hands wouldn’t go unappreciated. Adopting the true spirit of this year’s “Delivering Christmas,” I had made a silent promise to myself to be as active and helpful as possible.