I relay because I’m tired of watching people lose their loved ones to cancer. When I was in elementary school, my family always participated in the Relay for Life event in my grandma’s hometown. My brother and I would race and point out all the names we knew on the bags lining the track (and there were quite a few).

At that age, I didn’t realize the significance of the bags. Knowing now what they mean, that each one I recognized represented a loved one who had fought or was fighting cancer, it breaks my heart. My roommate just lost her father to cancer and I witness her pain every day, and it hurts me not to be able to do anything about it.

I relay for all the people I care about who have lost someone close to them, because, even though I can’t do anything alone to fix their pain, I can do my part to make sure other people won’t have to feel the same.

-Brittany England, Junior Movement and Exercise Science Major