 Hundreds turned out for the Pike County Relay for Life event this evening to remember those who lost their battle with cancer, celebrate the survivors and honor those still battling the disease. Officials are optimistic this year's event will be as successful as the last as team members are working as hard as ever. We have great teams in Pike County. They go above and beyond. They work all year long on their props. They get very competitive. We do an award for the best decorated campsite and they all get very creative from building 14-foot width structures to making things out of balloons, the tablecloth, you name it, they do it. I got started with Relay for Life back in 2010. I lost my mother to breast cancer and my papytolemic cancer in the same week. So Relay is something that's very close to my heart. It's something that I live for and that's why I do it. I'm very passionate about it. You would be hard pressed to find someone whose life had not been affected by cancer in one way or another. It's something that if it affects your family, it affects everybody that's in your family. And it's something that can't be helped and it's an awful thing to go through. So, you know, it's just a great, great cause to raise money for. My sister actually is the captain over the team and she is very passionate about it. She starts from one year to the next and prepares her theme from one year to the next and works pretty much all year raising money. This year she's raised over $10,000 for the cause and it's just something that's near and dear to our hearts. In an event like the Relay for Life, there are many ways to donate. Some donate their time, some donate their dollars. Others make a more personal donation. We both just had eight inches cut off of our hair because my mother had cancer and she passed away in 2002 and my stepmother had cancer and she's a survivor. You give somebody a chance that doesn't have hair to have hair because as we all know, chemo does a number on it and maybe somebody else can have hair from doing it. Officials hope to raise around $70,000 from this year's event. Reporting from Pikeville for EKB News, I'm Shawn Allen.