NILES — On Saturday, the Niles-Buchanan Relay For Life concluded its 22nd annual event at the Four Flags Area Apple Festival Fairgrounds in Niles.

Media lead Ember House has been alive about as long as the event she helps organize. Yet, she said she is quite familiar with the disease she works to prevent.

“I’ve had lots of people in my life affected by cancer, starting in 2004,” she said. “I was born in 1997. It started pretty early in my life. It happened last year with a friend of mine.”

Her close connection to cancer is what keeps her coming back to Relay for Life, she said.

The national event, organized by the American Cancer Society, raises funds to be used to work toward eliminating cancer.  Smaller chapters of Relay for Life organize teams, which raise these funds.

The Niles-Buchanan event raised more than $20,000 this year, House said. The event, running from 11 a.m. to midnight, drew in a dozen teams and dozens more attendees.

“We were just excited to see the community come out,” she said. “That’s always a great joy for our team that puts on the event.”

While donations were accepted during the event itself, most of the fundraising occurred beforehand. Teams competed to gather the largest total donation while Relay for Life organizers hosted trivia nights and volunteer work at the Niles Scream Park to raise money.

The event was a time for celebration and remembering, House said.

Team members and other attendees could walk loops around the fairgrounds as a way to show support for cancer fighters.

If attendees tired of walking, they could visit 16 vendors. Three were food vendors, including a Hawaiian shaved ice stand.

“That kept us nice and cool on a warm day and, also, not starving,” House said.

Games like a water balloon toss, a cornhole tournament and glow-in-the-dark bowling took place throughout the 13-hour event.

“It went well,” House said about the day’s events. “The beauty of having it at the Apple Festival Grounds is that we could make it as big or small as we wanted it to. This year, we chose to keep it a little more intimate.”

The lead programs of the day were a survivor ceremony and a luminaria ceremony.

The survivor ceremony was meant to honor those who beat cancer.

Nancy Comfort, of Buchanan, was the key speaker. She had been a cancer survivor for more than 30 years and is currently battling the disease again.

The luminaria ceremony was meant to honor those who died.

“We remembered those who had passed,” House said. “It was very emotional. It was 30 minutes of remembering those and honoring them.”

Before the ceremony, attendees decorated paper bags, typically with messages written to those who died of cancer. Then, at the 10 p.m. ceremony, attendees placed candles inside the bags, then placed the bags around the path which they had walked around.

Although Relay for Life ended a few days ago, House and the other team members are already planning next year’s event.

In August, they will host a post-event party, where they will ask attendees what went well at the event and what they would like to see next year. Then, in September, the planning will start again.

House plans to support Relay for Life far past next year’s program, though.

“Losing people isn’t fun,” she said. “I’ll do it until I die.”