Berkeley-Lacey Relay For Life Set For This Weekend - Rain Or Shine

They walk to remember.

They walk to honor those now gone and those still fighting an insidious invader. They walk because cancer never sleeps.

Teams of participants will gather at Veterans Park in Bayvllle noon on Saturday for the annual Berkeley-Lacey Relay for Life. Many of them will stay overnight, until the event ends at 6 a.m. on Sunday for one of the American Cancer Society's biggest fundraisers of the year.

The event includes an opening ceremony at 2 p.m., a survivors’ lap at 2:30 p.m. for those still fighting and a caregivers’ lap for anyone who has cared for a loved one with cancer.

It’s capped off with the emotional candlelight ceremony at 10 p.m to remember all those lost to cancer.

The first Relay for Life took place in Tacoma, Washington back in 1985, when Dr. Gordon Klatt walked around a track for 24 hours straight to raise money for cancer. Sadly, the founder of the Relay for Life died in 2014 of heart failure while he was batting stomach cancer.

For more information, to make a donation or purchase a luminaria in memory of a loved one, go to the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life's website.