Greensville, SC.  Team Draft will join rival high schools Greenville and JL Mann to celebrate the end of the high schools’ annual Spirit Week competition this Friday, Sept 13 at Sirrine Stadium.  This will be a game to celebrate and honor cancer survivorship.

During halftime, cancer survivors will be recognized throughout the stadium with balloon luminaries purchased by Spirit Week supporters and the combined grand total of monies raised this week will be revealed.  The high schools hope to raise enough money to pay for the 12’ wide x 140’ long “Spirit Bridge” that will be a central feature in the park.

This year both J.L. Mann and Greenville High Schools are joining forces to raise funds for one charity - The Cancer Survivors Park, a project of Patients First.  "This park is redefining the meaning of a survivor", says Greenville High School Student Body President Charlie Stone.  "Cancer is something that affects everyone. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, everyone around them is diagnosed. A survivor is the person fighting cancer now, the caregivers, family and friends of those patients and even those left behind when someone loses the earthly battle with the disease."  J.L. Mann High School Student Body President, Caroline Grigg, adds, "We really wanted to make a large positive impact on the community and we wanted our schools to get involved with something that they could enjoy for years to come and know it would continually touch many lives.  The Cancer Survivors Park gives us that opportunity." 

The Cancer Survivors Park (CSP), to be located on an approximately 3-acre site along the Swamp Rabbit Trail adjacent to the Chamber of Commerce in downtown Greenville, will provide a place of respite and rejuvenation and will serve as a platform for holistic programs designed to enhance the healing experience.  “With a vision to be more than just a another beautiful park, the CSP has been uniquely designed to blend meditative spaces, inspirational sculpture and cutting edge technology to encourage each one of us to become an active participant in our own health and healing and to live each moment we are given to its fullest,” says co-founder and COO Diane Gluck.  She adds that “By bringing education, art and support programs out into the community, we hope to re-integrate survivorship into the on-going fabric of life.”

Indeed, there are no other parks anywhere that combine the healing aspects of open spaces with on-going survivorship and healing programs.  Over 10 years in the planning, the CSP brings together the countless investments and hours of input from families and volunteers with the essential support of numerous community partners - the City of Greenville, Renewable Water Resources, Design Strategies, Arbor Engineering, Naturaland Trust, Upstate Forever, Greenville Health System, and Bon Secours St. Francis Health System -  to make the vision a reality.

In that same spirit of healing, for the first time ever, Greenville High School and JL Mann High School have channeled their Spirit Week rivalries toward one theme – survivorship, and one charity – the Cancer Survivors Park