The American Cancer society holds Relay For Life events all over the country. This week, events in Georgia and Oregon celebrated survivors, mourned victims – and raised a substantial amount for cancer research.

Gwinnett Country in Georgia will host a Relay event this Friday at 6 pm that will see cancer survivors being cheered on as the walk the Survivor’s lap. Many of the visitors bring signs honoring deceased friends or family members.

In preparation for the event, Relay teams across the county launched successful fundraising missions. The Grace Fellowship Relay team already raised 75% of their goal of US$ 2,500 and is certain to achieve their target. Snellville United Methodist Church is planning to raise US$ 6,000 while Brookwood High School wants to raise US$ 10,000.

Meanwhile, Oregon Relay teams are fundraising by selling Cookies or manning Survivor desks at Salem city’s Paint the Town Purple Event.

Many of the organizers of the fundraising events are cancer survivors themselves or were faced with cancer in their family. Stephanie Marbut of the Grace fellowship’s fundraising team lost her mother to ovarian cancer, while Sunny Klampe who handed out goody bags to survivors in Salem, beat uterine/endometrial cancer.

Emily Good from Snellville’s Brookwood High School said her favorite part of the Relay was the ceremony that sees bagpipers lead a silent honoring of the survivors. The 13-year-old that lost her best friend to a brain tumor, added: “You’re with people who have gone through what you have gone through”.