Jeannie and Don Parscal have put more than just a lot of work into the clock they are donating to the Relay For Life silent auction.

The clock has a lot of sentimental value, as well as a history in cancer.

“Don’s dad built one when his wife had cancer,” Jeannie said.

His dad, Donald, was a woodworker and took on the project to give him something to do to help occupy his time while he was caring for his wife.

He completed it shortly before his wife died and then donated it to hospice. He also got Jeannie and Don into scroll sawing.

“Then two years later Don’s dad was diagnosed with lung cancer too,” Jeannie said.

In his last year, Donald and Don each started a clock with a challenge to see who could complete theirs first.

“The woodcrafting was something through Bernadine’s cancer and his,” Jeannie said. “He was just such an inspiration.”

Donald was the first to get his clock done, with a little help from Jeannie who kept telling Don that his father wasn’t that far along so he wasn’t in a hurry to complete it.

During Donald’s last nine months, he moved in with Jeannie and Don and they were his caregivers.

Don and Donald also were featured in Creative Woodworking magazine, which Donald got to see a proof of before he died. They featured a story on the two of them and their two clocks.

But that wasn’t the end of the Parscal family’s battle with cancer.

Just two years after Donald passed away, Jeannie’s mother was diagnosed with lung cancer.

For the last couple of years, Jeannie said she has had in her mind to donate the clock Don made to the Relay.

“There is close to 200 hours in it,” Don said.

It took right at 100 hours to cut it all out from the pattern.

The decorative clock, which stands about three feet tall, is made from Walnut, Red Cedar and Mahogany.

“All the wood was planed down from rough stock,” Don said.

This was a large project for Don.

“Compared to what I’d done up to then, this was big,” he said. “What I enjoyed most was just watching it all come together.”

Jeannie encouraged Don to donate, mainly so he would be inspired to finish the other four he has started.

“I’m hoping it will find a good home here in El Dorado,” she said.

Although the silent auction doesn’t officially start until the survivors reception June 19, bidding on the clock is going on now and will continue until the Relay. The minimum bid for it is $750 and bids can be placed at Circle Gallery, where the clock is on display in the front window.

“To me, it’s special because it was inspired by Donald and he was a native El Doradoan,” Jeannie said.

Jeannie and Don are also both captains of their own Relay teams. Jeannie is the captain of the Downtowner Team, while Don is captain of the Legion Rider team, Butch’s Brigade.

“My experience with the Relay and raising money for the American Cancer Society is motivated by the fact I’ve had so many family members affected by cancer,” Jeannie said, adding that the biggest impact on her though, was being a caregiver to someone with cancer.