Sometimes it’s important to run fast. Sometimes...

Sometimes it’s important to run fast. Sometimes it’s important to run a long distance. And sometimes the most important thing of all is just to run.

That will be the case Saturday at Shoreline Aquatic Park in Long Beach for about 100 children who will complete a segment of the sixth annual Champions Run for Life Torch Run. They are all current or former cancer patients.

The event is the biggest fund-raiser each year for the Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center, said Rushean Schuhmann, community outreach coordinator for Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and an organizer of the torch run. It has brought in more than $500,000 for cancer research and education since 1986.

Although raising money is important, the event also does a lot to raise spirits. “It’s a whole family affair,” Schuhmann said. “They run with their mom and their dad and their relatives. Sometimes you’ll see 20 people running with the kids.”

Not every runner draws that big a crowd, but each one is accompanied during a one-eighth-mile segment of the torch relay by at least three people--a family member, a celebrity and a sponsor.

The celebrities include sports stars, political figures, entertainers and actors. This year’s volunteers include members of the casts of “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose” and “PeeWee’s Playhouse.”

The sponsors, who donate $1,500 each, are recruited beforehand by a fund-raising committee. “We have a wide range of sponsors,” Schuhmann said, “from individuals to corporations. One year, the grandma and grandpa of one of the children recruited their family and friends to give $50 apiece so they could be a sponsor.”

About 200 community volunteers will assist with the event, and the general public is invited, Schuhmann said. The torch run begins at 10 a.m. and continues until 1 p.m.

The second part of the fund-raiser will take place Saturday evening at the Long Beach Hyatt Regency Hotel. A silent auction of sports tickets, theater tickets and other items will begin at 5:30. Dinner will be at 7:30, with dancing and casino games to follow. Tickets for the evening event are $150 per person, available from the cancer center by calling 426-2146.

In addition to current patients, some of the runners will be former Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center patients whose disease is in remission, including a few who have run in all five previous events. Schuhmann said the medical staff makes an effort to schedule chemotherapy sessions to allow as many children as possible to participate in the relay.

“Our children actually train for this. It’s truly a race to them,” she said. “They want to run as fast as they can to pass the torch on to the next child.”