Anyone who doesn't know Pine Bush well must have had questions on their mind if they drove through the town on May 1. Between the Purple UFO yard signs, the big purple bows on the columns of the Cultural Center, the mass of purple sprouting in every storefront on Main Street, the purple streamers in the windows of the Crispell sSchool front, and the three-foot-high purple aliens standing guard at the School Administration Building, the whole town was purple-ized. Even Hannaford had purpled up its columns while a barbecue was going on outside to celebrate.

Why the purple?

It was Paint-the-Town-Purple-Day, and much of the reason for this lays with the extremely energetic Donna Henke, who has been involved with Relay-For-Life, the anti-cancer movement, for seven years. Henke, who recently became a cancer survivor, herself, organized Pine Bush's first Purple Day last year. This year things have gone even purpler.

It's all to boost awareness of the Relay-for-Life walkathon in the Town Park on June 14, and the town has responded in a big way. From Boniface Drive all the way around and down to the School Administration building, there was purple showing, and at the Administration building there was a trio of purple aliens minding the store. "This community is just incredible," says a slightly breathless Henke, who's been running the media gauntlet all day. "There has been a tremendous response to Relay-for-Life here. I have forty teams now, ready to go on the fourteenth."

Since each team has ten or more participants, she's confident that there'll be people constantly on the move through the event, which kicks off at 3 p.m. on June14 and runs all night to finish at 7 a.m. the next day. It also shows the scale of the community's participation.

"We run the relay in the Town Park, and so many businesses are participating and entering teams," says Henke. "It's right across the board. Hannaford's will be there with food, and Pine Bush Equipment will do a ton of stuff. Not only do they provide generators, but they field a big team themselves."

We pause outside the shoe shop and Donna poses beside the sign for the purple crocs.

"Sneakers to Boots is my own team, and Joanne has got in a load of these Purple Crocs." Henke shows off her fabulous mauve footwear.

One noticeable aspect of Purple Day is the army of UFO yard signs, and Henke laughs when this is mentioned.

"Last year we had purple flamingos, and they were nice, but I wanted yard signs this year, and we decided on the UFOs, because they are a Pine Bush thing," she explains. "We got 500 of them made and we're selling them for $10 each."

This year the theme for Pinebush's Relay-for-Life is "Celebrate — Remember —Fight Back."

"We want to celebrate surviving cancer, while we remember those we've lost. And we want to continue the fight against cancer and the march to the day when we have complete cures."

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