LEWISTON — Under a hazy sky, dozens of spectators and participants turned out early Saturday for the 16th annual Dempsey Challenge in Simard-Payne Memorial Park.

Challenge namesake Patrick Dempsey hopped on the main stage at the beginning of the event giving words of encouragement to the participants, reiterating that the challenge is not a race, rather it is about staying active, he said. He encouraged people to look out for and get to know one another during their participation.

It was announced at the awards ceremony later in the day that Dempsey will be honored in October at the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Awards in Washington, D.C., according to Dempsey Center spokesperson Katelynn Davis. The awards recognize people who demonstrate service and who are making positive impacts through everyday actions and words, according to the Points of Light website.

After the announcement, Dempsey took the stage and shared the award with those involved with the challenge, stating “that award goes to all of us because we could not do this unless we all did it together. So in that award I think it really is a celebration of all the light that is here today in this park.”

Two-time cancer survivor and this year’s biggest individual fundraiser Fran Stanhope received the Amanda Dempsey Award this year. Dempsey’s sister, Mary Dempsey, presented that award and also recognized past Award recipients.

“She has raised over $200,000. She is a true champion of the center and all the commitment to help (make) life better for those people impacted by cancer,” Mary Dempsey said.

Other participants and challenge teams were recognized with awards during the ceremony for their fundraising efforts. Dempsey’s other sister, Alicia Hatten, helped present some of the awards.

Before the awards ceremony, around 200 people led by the Dempsey siblings participated in the Survivor Walk around Simard-Payne Park beside the Androscoggin River.

Several celebrities attended the morning events including Mark Consuelos of the “LIVE with Kelly and Mark” show on CBS and “Survivor” competitor Ethan Zahn. U.S. Sen. Angus King also made an appearance at the event Saturday morning, talking to Dempsey near the event’s starting line.

Dempsey hopped on stage beside the starting line to kick off the beginning of each bike challenge event, which had staggered start times. Dempsey and Consuelos both participated in the 25-mile bike challenge.

Some of the several hundred people participating in the Survivors Walk on Saturday afternoon begin to circle Simard-Payne Memorial Park during the Dempsey Challenge in Lewiston. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Dempsey said he is proud of the way the community has come together for the challenge over the years to support the center and allow it to expand. Seeing all of the people who attend the event shows how much cancer impacts people’s lives, he said.

He shared his appreciation for all of the challenge participants ahead of the start of the 65-mile bicycle ride, the longest event. The funds raised by the challenge help ensure that patients can receive center services at no cost to them, he said.

“When you’re suffering (on the 65-mile ride), just remember you’re out there getting to participate when so many people wish they could,” he told the crowd. “They’re lying in a hospital bed and they’re just wanting to get out of there, so that always inspires me and makes me appreciate what we do have, which is our health.”

There were many survivors at the morning event, some who have used the Dempsey Center services and others who have not but wanted to show up to support its mission of offering no-cost wellness care to people with cancer and those recovering from cancer.

Jessica Wade of Windham showed up to the event with her team, Ovar It, a pun referencing her remission from ovarian cancer, she said. Cancer was not on her radar, so she was not expecting the diagnosis her doctor revealed in 2021.

“You just don’t think of that,” she said. “It was definitely a surprise at 38.”

Before her diagnosis, she had heard about the Dempsey Center but did not know much about it, she said. She learned about the organization’s services at a chemotherapy treatment and then was able to get access to support groups, massages, acupuncture, nutritional consultation and exercise classes through the center, which cost nothing to patients.

Though she had good health insurance to help pay for her treatments, if not for the Dempsey Center she does not think she would have sought out those services elsewhere, she said.

The same year she was first diagnosed, she decided to attend her first Dempsey Challenge and has come every year since, she said. She went into remission in 2022.

“I just want to be able to give back in some way, it’s an amazing organization,” she said.

Jennifer Rankin, center, fastens a poster on the back of her mother, Sandy Look, as her daughter Haley Brown, left, does the same to her Saturday morning in Simard-Payne Memorial Park prior to the start of the Dempsey Challenge in Lewiston. Look, a cancer survivor, came from Columbia Falls to honor her husband who lost his battle with cancer last year. Rankin and Brown are from Bucksport. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Sandy Look traveled from Down East to attend her second Dempsey Challenge, she said. The Columbia Falls resident was diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a blood cancer. After a bone marrow transplant in 2015, she has been in remission. But she lost her husband to blood cancer last year.

She likes the “human touch” that the Dempsey Center provides for cancer patients, she said, though she never used its services when she was in treatment as she lives too far away.

Fred Eliot came from Portland to ride in the 50-mile challenge event, his second year participating, he said. He rides to support those impacted by cancer. “Everyone knows somebody who has been touched by cancer, so it’s just a good cause,” he said.

As of Saturday afternoon, the challenge had raised more than $1.6 million of its $2 million fundraising goal, it’s largest goal in challenge history. More than 2,300 people registered for the event, according to the Dempsey Center, surpassing last year’s registration of 2,284 people.