Relay for Life participants raised more than $105,000 for the American Cancer Society this year, which tops last year’s total by $20,000.

“With the economy we took a hit last year,” said Tina Yates, a volunteer at Lawrence’s 10th annual relay Friday night at the Free State High School track.

Gary Rogers, Lawrence, a three-year cancer survivor, kisses his cockatoo Venus, while his other cockatoo, Tinkerbell, rests on his shoulder during the Relay for Life. The event, which celebrates cancer survivors and benefits the American Cancer Society, was overnight Friday at the Free State High School track.

More than 2,000 luminaries, sold for $10 each, ringed the track. Thousands of participants — members of 60 teams — had to keep at least one member walking between 7 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. today.

The 165 cancer survivors in attendance took the inaugural lap.

One of the proudest was Lawrence resident Jeanne Bronoski. When she conquered breast cancer eight years ago in 1996, she endured painful chemotherapy, hair loss and a mastectomy. When joined cancer survivors at that year’s Relay for Life, her two children wheeled her around the track because she was still fighting the disease.

That year Bronoski also joined the team of volunteers who organizes the Lawrence relay. She’s been attending meetings several months out of the year ever since to plan the event.

“This is a party,” she said, gesturing toward the walkers brushing past her. “This is to celebrate.”

The relay, which takes place annually in cities around the nation, symbolizes the darkest time in a cancer patient’s life: the night.

6News video: 60 teams participate in Relay For Life Relay For Life of Lawrence

“When you’re laying in a hospital at night, you think about your mortality,” Bronoski said.

But as the sun breeches the darkness in the early-morning hours, she said, patients gain hope.

Along a grassy bank on the southwest side of the field, luminaries spelled the word “HOPE” in the evening. Near dawn, Bronoski said, volunteers were to shift the letters to form the word “CURE.”

People who have been free from cancer for five to 10 years walk in the Victory Lap during Lawrence's Relay for Life. This weekend's event, at the Free State High School track, benefits the American Cancer Society.

Volunteers asked teams to decorate their tents to fit the theme “A Decade of Hope.” At the track’s entrance, neighboring teams adopted neighboring decades. The tent entrance for the Lawrence Daughters of Isabel, a Catholic women’s organization, was a makeshift 1920s speakeasy with drawings of flappers honoring the four team members who had fallen to cancer. Six of the team’s 12 current members are survivors.

“We’re kickin’ up our heels for a cure,” said team captain Janet Huss, who wore a teal, sequined zoot suit.

Next door, the Snorkelers, a local investment club, begged for dimes from their slatted “Hoovervilles” of the 1930s. Costumes with knapsacks and dirtied faces were lighthearted, said team member Jennifer Wyatt, but the mood of the era fit Friday’s theme as well.

“They needed money for subsistence, and we need money for cancer,” she said.