Since Relay for Life’s inception in 1985, the organization has raised more than $3 billion dollars from events in more than 5,000 communities.

Friday night, Warren County hosted its own Relay for Life event, with cancer survivors, caretakers and community members walking laps around the Vicksburg High School track to represent not giving up. The event also featured booths from businesses and organizations that sold food and other items to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

A total of 24 teams participated in this year’s Relay for Life, said Scarlet Fowler, community manager with the American Cancer Society.

“Here in Vicksburg, we’ve done a lot better this year,” she said. “We’re up 14 teams from last year.”

The goal set for this year was $47,000, Fowler said.

“Before the event we had raised about $14,000 toward the goal,” she said. “We usually hit the goal by September. There’s a fundraiser in the fall that contributes about $20,000.”

Loretta Hills, a survivor from Hermanville, beat breast cancer five years ago.

“I have a team every year,” she said. “Loretta’s Angelic Warriors.”

Hills said she has been coming out to Relay for Life since she was diagnosed in 2010.

“We say walking by faith, not by sight,” she said. “That’s 2 Corinthians 5:7.”

Sylvia Lamb, a survivor who teaches chemistry at Vicksburg High School, beat breast cancer 13 years ago, and she has been coming to Relay for Life events ever since then.

“I honestly feel like I’m here because of the research that was funded from things like this event,” she said.

Lamb said when she was first diagnosed her first thought was disbelief but her second thought was thank God she lives in modern times because the diagnosis may not be a death sentence.

“They did experimentation on me,” she said. “I’m here 13 years later. They can try out different treatments like that because they get funding.”

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center ran one of the concession booths, and they called their team the Cape Crusaders for Cancer, which was led by team captain Shan Martin.

“We’ve got a variety of concessions to raise funds for the American Cancer Society for the annual Relay for Life event here in Warren County,” Mazella Thomas said. “We’ve been doing this 15-plus years.”

Thomas has been participating in Relay for Life since 2002.

“We do it to pay tribute to our loved ones who are battling cancer and our loved ones who have fallen,” she said. “One of the best things about this team is that everybody comes out with a common focus, all to remember loved ones, so working with those individuals makes the event special because we all share that common bond.”

Thomas said her coworkers really come together to make their stand successful by donating time and money.

“We look forward to getting together, seeing the other teams and celebrating the survivor activities and our fundraising events while making a difference in Warren County,” she said.

Thomas also said she wants to encourage anyone in the community who is dealing with cancer to reach out to the Relay for Life committee and the American Cancer Society.

“We want the community to know this event is for the community and they need to know what the American Cancer Society can do for them as far as benefits,” she said. “That’s why we do this.”