On both ends of Wiscasset Saturday, people were raising money to help people pay household or other bills while fighting cancer. Organizers of the separately run events at Wiscasset Speedway near Alna, and Chad and Julie Jones’ sand volleyball court near Woolwich, raised a combined $1,352; and the one at the speedway had another round to go Sept. 28, night two of a silent auction.

Mikayla Warren, 16, said she and her father Mike Warren, who has leukemia and colon cancer, were already going to walk the speedway’s track Saturday to raise funds for Dean Snell Cancer Foundation. Then the Sept. 16 explosion in Farmington gave them further reason to walk. She and her father, who is retired from 30-plus years of area firefighting, knew the firefighters killed and injured. In their honor, the Wilton father and daughter walked in turnout gear Saturday.

Mike Warren later noted his son Johnathan responded with Chesterville Fire and EMS to the Farmington incident. Due to what happened to the Farmington firefighters, “I knew we had to do something” to honor them at Saturday’s event, Mike Warren said. So he brought his American flag and walked in turnout gear. “Every lap,” he said.

Mikayla, who plans to follow generations of her family into firefighting, continued her walk without gear, near family friend Merton Campbell, who carried her father’s American flag around the track when Mike could do no more laps. Campbell, who’d also been walking for another friend with cancer, added laps for Mike Warren. In all, Campbell, of Alna, said later, he did 21 laps.

It just shows how tight-knit and supportive people in the racing community are, Mike Warren, who oversees a speedy dry and cleanup crew at the track, said. “We’re all team Wiscasset.”

On the other side of town, under the same hot sun, Chad and Julie Jones and their family and friends were serving on the sand and on the grill for the same cause. When the Wiscasset Newspaper interviewed the family ahead of the first annual volleyball fundraiser in 2015, the foundation had given out more than $240,000, Dean Snell’s widow, Julie Jones’ aunt Sharon Snell, said then.

Saturday, Snell said her husband died 10 years ago Sept. 19. The 10-year-old foundation has now given out $610,000, she said. When the family started the foundation, “We could never have imagined that,” she said. And to have a new fundraiser at the speedway was just amazing, she said. She helped at that one and the one at the Olympic–sized sand court on Sukie Lane.

Nearly everyone interviewed at both events was related to or friends with people who fought or are fighting cancer, or they have had it. Cancer survivors Bonnie Colby of Wiscasset and Phillips’ Taylor Lane, a four-cylinder car driver at the track, walked it with Wiscasset’s Desiree Hilton, whose sons Brentley Ames, 2, and Jeremiah Ames, 1, traveled the track in strollers.

Sherry Scott said she has lost four relatives to cancer this year. She, daughter Aryanna, 7, and their friend and fellow Alna resident Teresa Williams walked the track together. It was getting hot out. Williams said she took a break before her third lap.

Austin and Kate Fridley’s sons Nolan, 5, and Wyatt, 2, played restaurant on the Jones’ lawn and their parents played volleyball in the sand. “We enjoy the sport and the company is good, and it’s a good cause,” Kate said.

Penny Shorette got the event at the speedway together. She handles the children’s activities in the grandstand on race nights. She said cancer has affected drivers and others in the speedway’s community, so she wanted to do something, and the foundation serves people in this area. Speedway co-owner Vanessa Jordan liked that about the cause, too. Interviewed separately, both said they would like to have the event again. “Maybe we can build on this,” Jordan said. Husband and track co-owner Richard Jordan walked the track. It’s a beautiful day, he said.

The Jones’ event raised $600, Julie Jones said; the one at the speedway, $752 after the walk and night one of the silent auction, with items ranging from lobsters to a front tire off the car Ben Ashline drove to victory in the Boss Hogg 150, Shorette said. The auction ends next race night, Saturday, Sept. 28, she said.

Learn more about the foundation at deansnell.org. Tax-deductible donations can go to The Dean Snell Cancer Foundation, P.O. Box 104, Brunswick, ME 04011.