People gathered Tuesday night in Mobley Atrium of Edgecombe Community College for a time of reflection and recognition.

Survivors, family members, friends, supporters and contributors of Relay for Life met for the Edgecombe County Relay for Life Wrap-Up Celebration.

The celebration was high energy throughout the program with food, chanting, team brainstorming and the opportunity for teams to get their bragging rights during the awards portion.

The night started off with allowing everyone to go over and get food from a buffet. Cancer survivors were given the opportunity to serve themselves first.

The mouths filled with food didn’t slow anyone down from showing their enthusiasm about Relay for Life.

A few people chanted, “Can I have a 'relay'?” and “Relay!” was chanted in response.

As everyone was finishing up eating, Edgecombe County Relay for Life Chairwoman Pam Gould passed out red sheets of paper with Relay spelled out down the side vertically. The tables were given markers and asked to work together as a group to come up with words for each letter that represents the past relay season.

The team of tables came up with playful words as well as more serious words to describe their season.

Some of the more comical words were "rowdy," "Elvis," "long," "all night"and "yeah Relay." Some of the more serious words were "remember," "empowering," "luminary," "ambitious" and "yearly event."

Gould gave the crowd an explanation of why they did the team-building exercise.

“I wanted you to get into the frame of mind of why we’re here tonight,” she said.

Before the Relay for Life teams were awarded certificates and plaques, Gould shared that her friend and her friend’s co-worker were both recently diagnosed with leukemia.

“I don’t have to tell you our fight isn’t over,” Gould said.

Gould and one of the people in attendance spoke to everyone about how it is important to keep up the symbols that represent Relay for Life such as the purple ribbons.

“I want the purple fever to keep catching on. Our whole city needs to be painted purple,” Gould said.