If you’ve never been to a Relay for Life event before, the idea is to get friends and family to sponsor you before your walk, but also to set up a booth along the relay path with an additional fund raising effort. Our team’s booth had a Halloween theme. We were Team FIGHT FOR LIFE and our slogan was ‘Scaring Away Cancer.’ We sold pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and raffled off a free portrait session, courtesy of yours truly, with all proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society.

I can’t wait to do this again next year. Chris and I have decided to share the Team Captain duty and we already have our team name, theme and fund raising ideas planned out. It’s gonna be great! Here are a few photos from this year.

First up, a group shot of Team FIGHT FOR LIFE!

The relay was kicked off with the Survivor walk. Cancer survivors walked a lap and the rest of us stood along the path and cheered them on. I didn’t expect it to be, but the moment proved to be very emotional and more than a few of us cried just watching these amazing people walk past us. To see them marching along, knowing the struggle they had been through,  reminded me of why we were there in the first place.

My sister-in-law, Heather, was on our team and is a cancer survivor. We were so happy, proud and thankful to see her among the survivors. As you can see, she was pretty excited, too.

The cool thing about the event is that it’s not just a bunch of people walking around in a big circle all day. There were bands playing from the very beginning until late into the night to keep us entertained. After the sun went down, I snuck over to the stage area halfway through one of my laps and snapped a few shots of one of the bands.

But my favorite part of the event by far was the luminaria that lined the path in the evening.

People were able to decorate luminarias in memory or honor of their loved ones and at dusk they were placed along the relay path. There was a special lap where everyone was given a candle and got to slowly walk the path together. The illuminated luminarias looked beautiful and it was really neat to read the dedications that people had written on some of them. I snapped a shot of some of the ones my team decorated, including the one I made in my cousin Amy’s memory.

A great big THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored me and my team on this walk. I’m looking forward to next year already!