Mary McKee had leukemia when she was 10 years old. Now, she's helping give back and put on the first Southeast Missouri State University Relay for Life as the survivorship chair for Colleges Against Cancer at Southeast.

"It's made me cherish life more. Some people are just kind of happy-go-lucky with it, and I see it as more of it gives me a reason to do something since I had it," McKee said. "I think it's important to give back to the people that helped me while I had cancer, with fundraising and stuff, because it is expensive and it's hard to go through certain things and certain treatments, so I think it's important to always give back and help others."

Relay for Life will start at 6 p.m. Friday at the intramural softball fields at the corner of Bertling and Sprigg Street and last until 6 a.m. Saturday.

Southeast's CAC president Jenny Boring said members of the organization have been planning the relay since last spring because they only had a "Grab Your Balls" dodgeball tournament last year.

Boring said this event is similar to the Cape Girardeau County Relay for Life, except that this one is more focused on college students, although participants do not have to be students to sign up. CAC members originally thought they were going to have to compete against the county's event for teams since they were both scheduled in April, but that event was moved to June 14.

The theme for the the CAC relay is "Through the Decades" and teams will choose their decade and decorate accordingly. There will be different activities each hour.

"Some of our things we're doing is called Mr. Relay and you get a guy and they dress up as a girl, they raise money -- they walk around and get money -- they have a stage name, they perform, they get questions asked, so that's the fun thing we do for the guys," Boring said.

The relay will also have Zumba, a few bands, a DJ and will have games like "salty whistle" where participants eat a saltine cracker and have to see who can whistle the fastest.

"I'm just excited to see how everybody handles it," McKee said. "Because some people have never done it before, so their first experience is always kind of interesting to see how they'll react, and I think it will be good to get the whole campus involved and just come together."

There are currently 16 teams signed up and 114 participants. Some student organizations that have teams are the Student Activities Council, TWLOHA, the psychology club and the social work club.

Although the deadline to sign up and receive a shirt was March 19, anyone can register until the night of the event at relayforlife.org/semo.

CAC was given a goal by the American Cancer Society to have 10 teams and raise $15,000. The group wants to raise at least $15,000, but wants to increase the goal for the number of teams to 20.

Boring has participated in other relays, but her "big push" to make the event successful this year is a 12-year-old boy who recently died. She had played softball with his sister for six or seven years and saw him frequently at practices and games.

"I am very personal about it this year because I lost someone a month ago," Boring said. "He was 12 and he had brain and spinal cancer, so my main reason for doing it this year is for him. My aunt's had it, my grandma's had it, so I've just had plenty of people who have had it and that's just pushed my drive to find a cure."

McKee wants to use this event as a "stepping stone" to see what the strong and weak points of the event are and improve upon them.

CAC has meetings at 7 p.m. on Mondays in the University Center Indian Room that anyone can attend. For more information about Relay for Life or Colleges Against Cancer, email Boring at jnboring1s@semo.edu.

"Our goal next year is to every two months have an event for whatever cancer is that month," Boring said about raising awareness for different types of cancer during nationally designated months. "So we would need help running those and having them go off."