This weekend, survivors, volunteers and other participants will come together at the Washington High School track to fight back against cancer.

According to Dawn Johnston, chairperson for the Relay for Life, the event will kick off on Friday evening at 6 p.m. with opening ceremonies.

“We’ll have our prayer, the Northside JROTC will be doing the presenting of the colors and the WHS band will present the national anthem,” said Johnston. “Then our survivors will actually take to the track so that we can make some noise for a cure — that’s our theme this year. We are really excited.”

Johnston said that the Relay for Life board is quickly approaching the goal that was set for 250 survivors to register with the event.

“We have already surpassed our number of teams goal,” Johnston said. “We actually have 38 teams and as of right now we have 736 registered participants.”

Johnston said that after the survivor lap, the sponsors for the event will be recognized for their contributions and support.

“Our teams, our planning committee and our corporate sponsors—we’ve got some recognitions that are ongoing,” Johnston said.

According to Johnston, the event will then host a kid’s walk in which kids and survivors will do a lap around the track with McGruff, the crime-fighting dog.

“Children are welcome to come out and participate,” Johnston said. “That’s actually for children in kindergarten through fourth grade. McGruff is going to come out and walk with them.”

Johnston said that the luminary ceremony, slated for 9 p.m., is one of their most anticipated features of the event. All the lights will go out for a brilliant display of luminaries, which are similar to lanterns. The luminaries are meant for people to be able to honor a lost loved one or a cancer survivor.

“We are really excited about the luminary ceremony,” Johnston said. “We encourage people to come out. You can actually still purchase luminaries up until the day of the event. Just come out to the track and we will help them with doing that. We have a couple fight back laps that will be tied in at the very end of the luminary ceremony. We want everybody to come out and join us in their purple as we fight back but we’ve got all these games going on throughout the night and our teams will be there all night.”

During the event, there will also be other activities and games going on, according to Johnston. There will be Midnight Bingo, a “pie in the face” game, a neon lap, a crazy hat lap, a glow-in-the-dark lap and other games going on all night. Johnston said that participants should come up with the craziest hat they can for the crazy hat lap. The

Johnston said on Saturday morning there will be a survivor breakfast at 8:15 a.m., followed by closing ceremonies at 9 a.m.

“We want to encourage our survivors to come back out and join us for our survivor breakfast,” Johnston said. “Then we will do our closing ceremonies. That’s when we will announce our top teams and our grand total for the event.”

To participate in Relay for Life or to donate to the event, call Dawn Johnston at 252-943-5061 or visit www.relayforlife.org/beaufortnc.