Step by step, more than 400 Ball State University students gathered $21,500 in pledges and donations this weekend for life-saving cancer research.
Senior Lisa Shipley, Ball State's Relay for Life team development chairwoman, said 38 teams registered for Ball State's fifth-annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life fundraiser, in which participants took turns walking around a track from 3 p.m. Friday to 9 a.m. Saturday.
This year's Relay for Life incorporated three concepts: "Celebrate" the success of survivors, "Remember" those who lost the fight and "Fight Back" against the disease, Shipley said.
The night's events included a cancer survivors' walk, a luminarium ceremony in honor of friends and family who have cancer and activities to keep teams awake and enthusiastic, Shipley said.
Senior Katie Speth, captain of the relay team "The Justice League," said she first joined a Relay for Life team at her church in high school. As a Ball State freshman, she decided to become captain of a team to meet people because she didn't know anyone else who was participating, she said.
Speth, who has been a team captain for four years, said she was impressed with how much Ball State's Relay for Life has improved since she was a freshman.
"When I was a freshman, it was only the second year at Ball State," Speth said. "It seems a lot more organized now - not that it wasn't organized before, but they have more experience now."
Her involvement in the annual event has continued because both of her grandfathers have been diagnosed with cancer, Speth said, but she said her goal has remained the same.
"I still relay for the same reasons, still do it for family and friends," Speth said.
Shipley said she had a chance to visit each team and talk to the members about why they were involved in the event.
"Some of them were just trying to make their way through the luminarium ceremony, and it was tough for them," she said. "Whether they just lost somebody or they knew someone who was just diagnosed or were struggling through it themselves, it made the event even that more necessary to occur. That was probably the best moment of the night."
Speth's favorite moment of the night was when her friend and fellow teammate Brian Kerschner won third place in the Miss Relay pageant, she said.
The Miss Relay pageant crowns the male participant who dresses in drag and raises the most money. While walking around in women's clothing and asking for donations. contestants in the Miss Relay pageant collected money from Late Nite Carnival attendees, she said.
"We first went to the Village because that's where we got a lot of money last year, then we realized no one was there because of the carnival," Speth said. "So then we went to the carnival and got most of our money there."
Shipley said the pageant raised about $500.
Money will still be coming in for the next few months because post-event fundraising will continue until the end of August, she said.
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