Last June, the fight against cancer gained a lot more meaning for Elizabeth Joyce.

After her… Last June, the fight against cancer gained a lot more meaning for Elizabeth Joyce.

After her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Joyce realized how important fundraising is to ending the disease, and she redoubled her efforts in Pitt’s Relay For Life.

Although the Pitt sophomore had participated in the event before, her mother’s diagnosis drove Joyce to become this year’s top individual fundraiser at Pitt for the annual event that takes place today.

“Seeing firsthand the effects cancer can have on someone is an eye-opening experience,” Joyce said. “You see what it can do to a person and a community. The Relay calls attention to the disease.”

Joyce started reaching out for donations in late February, sending out an e-mail to her family and friends one night. The message asked them to donate to the American Cancer Society in support of Pitt’s Relay For Life.

When she woke up the next morning, Joyce had more than $500 in donations. By the end of the day, as her e-mail traveled around the Internet, she had raised $1,500 in online credit card donations.

Money poured in over the next two months as Joyce raised nearly $3,700 — $200 more than her goal — toward the $65,000 total brought in by the rest of the event’s 1,000 participants.

Joyce’s efforts and those of all the teams participating in the event will culminate in tonight’s Relay For Life, which is hosted by Pitt student group Colleges Against Cancer.

About 100 teams of varying size — more than 1,000 students total — will camp out around the path between the Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Memorial Chapel from 5 p.m. today to 8 a.m. Saturday. For 15 hours, at least one participant from each team — many of whose members have personal connections to the disease’s victims — will walk a preset path to help raise money to fight cancer.

Taylor McKelvie, who co-chairs the Relay For Life committee, said the money that Joyce and other participants gathered will go to all aspects of cancer prevention, including treatment programs, research and education.

The teams are encouraged to have one participant walking the path from the start of the Relay until 8 a.m. Saturday to represent that cancer never sleeps, junior Kelsey Perkins said.

Perkins, the other co-chair of the Relay For Life committee, was only 12 when her father died of cancer. She said that experience was a big motivator to participate in the Relay.

“I also see it as a way of advocating healthy lifestyles in general — here you see a lot of people smoking and baking in the sun,” Perkins said.

Personal ties to the disease is a common theme among Relay organizers.

The chair of the committee, Jade Holtzinger, also lost a family member to the disease.

Holtzinger, who is now a senior, was only a sophomore when her mother died of cancer. She said she then immediately took the chair position of the committee.

“[The Relay] is so important to me on a personal level,” she said.

Although the American Cancer Society — which sponsors the event — distributes most of the funds, McKelvie, a senior, said UPMC will receive a large portion of the research funds raised at Pitt.

President of Colleges Against Cancer Rachel Strittmatter said the Relay For Life concept began in 1985 when a Washington surgeon, Dr. Gordy Klatt, wanted to find a way to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

“He literally walked for 24 hours and had people sponsor him,” the senior said. “Since then it has just spread — communities do it, high schools and now colleges.”

The Relay For Life has now transformed into an event of food, games, DJs and root beer pong. “Beating the Odds” is the theme for Friday’s “Vegas-style” Relay, at which more than 1,000 people will set up tents for their overnight stay on the Cathedral Lawn. The plans also include a midnight scavenger hunt and the Ms. Relay competition.

Last year, Ms. Relay, a contest in which where male participants dress up as female models and walk around Oakland with donation cups for an hour, raised more than $800, Perkins said.

“This year we’re going to dress them up like show girls,” she said. “Glittery make-up and all.”

Perkins said most Relay teams hold their own fundraisers at their tent sites to help Pitt reach its goal.

Team Homo Sapiens, co-captained by sophomores Emily Rowe and Brianna VanArsdale, plan to raise money by selling non-alcoholic “mocktails” from their tent.

“You can’t have Vegas without a bar,” Rowe said.

The 11-person team, whose mantra is to “support human equality and end suffering for all people,” has raised more than $500 so far through two tabling sessions in Towers Lobby and a bake sale in Posvar.

VanArsdale said the group is currently tossing around ideas of different games they will charge participants to play — possibly corn hole or card games — for video prizes.

“If you win, you get a VHS. If you don’t win, you get a VHS,” Rowe said. “We’ve got about 20 copies of ‘The Nutty Professor.’”

The Relay For Life, now in its fourth year at Pitt, expands ever year, Holtzinger said. The first year the event raised $13,000, less than a quarter of this year’s total before the event.

This year’s number doesn’t include donations from sponsors, either.

The American Cancer Society sets a goal each year for Pitt, and this year Pitt’s Relay is hoping to raise $100,000.

Holtzinger said she is confident the group will far surpass its fundraising goal.

“Most money comes in on the last day,” Holtzinger said. “People show up with the money they have raised and not documented online. We have five accountants there who count the money raised.”

She said that Pitt’s contributions have been growing ever since its first Relay in 2008, at which the participants raised $13,000.

Over the past four years, Pitt has raised more than $130,000 total.

“This year alone we hope to raise close to this amount,” she said.