NATCHEZ — Life moves in seasons, and for many in the Miss-Lou, following the Christmas and Mardi Gras seasons is the Relay for Life season.

For an area that is consistently one of the top per capita fundraisers for the American Cancer Society’s annual awareness walk-a-thon, fundraising begins early for the May 2 event.

According to the ACS’s Relay for Life website, 150 participants in 35 Miss-Lou teams have reported raising $27,960.22.

Leading the pack by more than $4,000 is Team Tatas, which has to date reported $7,281 in donations.

Most of that fundraising was done through the Bras on the Bluff event in early November, in which participants decorated bras and hung it on the fence along the bluff to raise awareness of breast cancer and breast cancer detection, Team Tatas captain and breast cancer survivor Meg Freeman said.

“I really want people to get mammograms, and I want them to be educated,” she said. “In 2013, Mississippi had 2,080 new cases of breast cancer. Most women — and men — who get it do not have a history. It just happens, and early detection is important.”

In addition to having a participant at Bras on the Bluff pay to display a bra, Freeman partnered with local graphic artist Jamie Saunders to sell T-shirts.

And while Freeman’s team is leading in fundraising for the Relay, it’s actually down money from the Bras on the Bluff event because Team Tatas partnered with another local charity to help two women get mammograms.

“I basically called the doctor’s offices around here and told them that if they had someone who they thought needed a mammogram but would have problems paying for it, we would help,” Freeman said. “We partnered with another group, they paid for the mammogram, while we paid for the reading of it.”

Since surviving breast cancer is a personal matter for Freeman, she’s made a point of knocking on doors of those who she knows have been diagnosed to give both advice and encouragement, and through her advocacy she’s had friends who — because of early detection — had cysts removed from their breasts.

“A lot of people aren’t willing to talk about their cancer, but I am, and I know how important it is for people to know what to expect when you’re in that situation,” she said.

This year for Relay, though, Freeman said she wants to focus on cancer in general rather than breast cancer specifically, and the T-shirts she’s selling for the event name those who have died from cancer, those who are fighting it and those who are in remission.

The key to raising money for cancer awareness is translating it into local action, Freeman said.

Freeman said she hopes that will include raising money to give colonoscopies and prostate cancer screenings.

“It helps to get my word out by helping the American Cancer Society and having a Relay team, but if we have local people who have cancer who have a need, I want to give those local people a hand,” she said. “I would love to give out more mammograms, and I would love to raise more money for awareness.”

For more information about the Miss-Lou’s Relay event, visit relayforlife.org and search for “Relay For Life of Adams County-Miss-Lou.”