Last week’s Relay for Life at Echo Glen Children’s Center wasn’t about raising money to fight cancer, though some staff members did open their pocketbooks to help.

Rather, the second-annual event focused on linking juvenile offenders who live at the facility with the outside community, said organizer Denise DuBose.

Many of the detainees have lost friends and family members to cancer, and through activities ranging from decorating luminaria bags that lined the general-public Relay event, to participating in a ceremony on Echo Glen grounds, the children were able to honor their loved ones.

DuBose invited the children to make bags dedicated to people they cared about who may or may not have been affected by cancer. Their bags — about 100 of them — lined the track at the July Snoqualmie Valley Relay for Life, which raised thousands of dollars to fight cancer.

DuBose returned the bags and brought Relay T-shirts to the children last Tuesday, August 12, when she coordinated a special ceremony and mini-Relay at the Echo Glen campus. In two hour-long shifts, almost all the students and staff came out to listen and walk or run.