Bob Silipigni, center, walks with the LHS Lions relay team during the annual Relay for Life event Friday evening, June 12, 2015, at Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

He’s back. That guy who knocks on people’s doors is back in the neighborhood again. You can see him plain as day through the drapes.

What’s he doing? How many times has he been in the neighborhood in the last week? Is that a Yankees cap he’s wearing? Very suspicious.

At about that point, Lawrence resident Bob Silipigni will have a brief conversation with a police officer: a report of an odd character in the neighborhood.

“Fortunately, it only takes a couple of minutes for the police to clear me anymore,” Bob says.

It is an occupational hazard for the top volunteer fundraiser for the Lawrence Relay for Life program. But don’t worry, Bob Silipigni is no danger to anyone. Make no mistake, though. There is something odd going on here.

Since the beginning of 2015, Bob has raised approximately $55,500 for the Relay for Life program in its effort to provide funding for the American Cancer Society. It is the first year he has topped the $50,000 mark, but he’s been close several times before. In the 15 years he’s been a part of the Relay for Life event, he individually has raised about $345,000 for the local chapter.

How’s he do it? One knock at a time. One day after another.

Bob estimates that he spends about six hours per day on fundraising activities for the organization. Some of it is picking his routes, some of it is correspondence with donors who have moved outside the city, some of it is organization of receipts. But a lot of it is walking, putting knuckles on doors and giving the simple spiel about being a member of the Lawrence Lions (the school, not the service club) Relay for Life Team. Bob says that until recently he had taken just three days off in 2015: Mother’s Day, Easter Sunday, and Memorial Day.

His donations have come from approximately 2,000 individuals, many of them people he sees year after year. Thankfully, most of them don’t call the police on him anymore. Now, they are much more likely to invite him in for a cup of coffee or another beverage. Sometimes they’ll share a story too.

Bob says he’s unsure how many of his donors have had an up-close experience with cancer. But he knows quite a few have.

“There are times that I have had to call a friend and just talk about what I had heard that day so I’m able to go to sleep,” Bob says of some of the stories donors have told about battles with cancer.

He said he has picked up on a common theme among those afflicted by cancer.

“What works for one person may not work for the other,” Bob says. “That’s the commonality. It is different for everybody.”

Indeed, Bob says he has heard the disease described as a frustrating, unfair game of dice. So much that is out of your control. Why did I get this disease? Why doesn’t this treatment work? A thousand whys with the only answer seeming to be chance.

What little I know of Bob is this: He’s not a fan of sitting still (he stood during the course of an hour-plus interview), and he’s not a fan of chance.

“I am a believer,” Bob says. “I don’t know exactly what I believe in, but I don’t think we are here just by chance. That’s the root of why I do this.”

So, Bob clobbers chance one knock at a time. He tells stories along the way. He gets excited about new research that he hopes one day will lead to a cure, sometimes getting technical in the process. (He started talking to me about immune systems and how research has suggested injecting a small amount of the polio virus in tumors can teach the immune system to fight cancer.) But he also talks of a different type of treatment that is easier to understand.

“There is a theory I like, and it is that we’re all healers,” Bob says. “We all do it in different ways. Some as a father, some as a mother, some as a teacher, but we can all be healers for someone who is suffering.”

Some healers are walkers. Bob — who is retired from a job that helped adults with disabilities — said he’s always liked to walk. It is in his genes, he said. One of his grandfathers walked 5 miles a day into his 80s.

Bob says he started out just walking around the city without a cause. It made him feel good when people would honk and wave at him, and then one day, an idea hit him.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be great to combine walking with a charity,” Bob says. “The shoe fit, so I wear it.”

Now, he’s driven on so many fronts. He admits to having a deep desire to beat his fundraising total from the year before. He’s not sure he’ll be able to do that following this year.

“It took a toll on me this year,” Bob says.

A couple of weeks ago, he quit walking. But then he spent time with a few friends, and became rejuvenated and raised a few more thousand dollars. He’ll start walking again in the new year, but he has promised himself he’ll do it differently.

“I’m going to take off a day a week,” Bob says. “I may take two days a week off. No, I don’t think I can do that.”

It is not just the dollar totals, though, that motivate Bob. He talks frequently about how many friends he’s made through the fundraising process.

“I have lots of friends,” Bob says. “Some of them I just don’t see but once a year or so.”

He’ll knock on a door, pick up a check, and get caught up on someone’s life. Sometimes the knock does go unanswered. There are too many cancer stories that don’t have happy endings.

But that won’t stop Bob from walking. He likes to tell a story about when he stopped at a stranger’s driveway one day. A family out in the yard. He gave his spiel, and the young mother of the family stood in the driveway, quiet and still.

Then she confided in him that she knew a thing or two about a “damn tumor.” There was one that had been hiding behind her breastbone.

“Her reaction was, ‘I’m going to die,'” Bob recalls. “Two small kids, 29 years old and a husband, and I’m going to die.”

Bob collected a check, and said he would be back next year. He did return, and said hello to the young mother, who was pulling her two children in a wagon up a hill. That was eight years ago.

“I want people to understand there is hope,” Bob says.

Understand it — and be prepared to answer its knock.

— Each Sunday, Lawhorn’s Lawrence focuses on the people, places or past of Lawrence and the surrounding area. If you have a story idea, send it to Chad at clawhorn@ljworld.com.