Dade County Festival of Life

Kelly Moore poses with her family in this shot from the Festival of Life's Facebook page.  This year's festival will benefit the Moore family directly as they struggle with overwhelming medical bills, 

Saturday’s Dade Festival of Life To Benefit Local Individual Battling Cancer

By Robin Ford Wallace

            Dade is a county that takes care of its own.  This weekend, the county will put a slightly different spin on that tradition with Saturday’s “First Annual Dade County Festival of Life,” a music and family-fun event in New Salem to benefit a county resident battling cancer.

            Dade “First Lady” Diane Rumley, one of the festival’s organizers, developed the idea after spearheading last year’s local version of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  Raising money for cancer research was wonderful, she said, but with friend and neighbor Kelly Moore quietly battling cancer for her life – and accumulating overwhelming medical bills in doing so – Ms. Rumley as well as other Dade citizens felt the need for something more up-close-and-personal.  Thus they set a date for a fundraiser, reserved the New Salem Community Center, and began lining up attractions.

            Well, besides being neighborly, Dade also has a rep for being musical – anybody ever heard of an act called the Forester Sisters? – and pretty soon the thing had snowballed into a full-blown country-style hootenanny.  Besides the Forester Sisters, scheduled acts include AoK, Wil Martin, the county’s favorite Dade County Boys, and let us not omit the First Lady’s First Gent, “Executator” Ted (“The Boss”) Rumley, Dade County’s own guitar-pickin’, bluegrass-singin’, joke-crackin’ barrel-of-fun-slash-head-of- government.

            A schedule of live music is available at the festival’s website, dadecountyfestivaloflife.com.

            Other events include a cornhole tournament and raffles for quilts, a donated gun safe and two decorative cornhole boards.

            The Dade County Festival of Life will be held between 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. this Saturday, April 5, at the New Salem Community Center.  If you can’t come, you may still donate online at the website – http://dadecountyfestivaloflife.com/donate -- or by check directly into an account set up for the purpose at the Bank of Dade.  Here’s the address:  Attn:  Joan Hixon, FBO Kelly Moore, Bank of Dade, P.O. Drawer 9, Trenton, Ga.  30752.  Make checks payable to Kelly Moore.

            For more information, you may leave a message at the website or call Cindy Cross at (423) 710-5885.  The Festival also has a Facebook page.

            As the name indicates, organizers expect the Festival of Life to become an annual tradition, to benefit a different local individual each year.

robinfordwallace@tvn.net